Ebola virus

noun

: any of several filoviruses (genus Orthoebolavirus and especially O. zairense) of African origin that cause an often fatal hemorrhagic fever

Examples of Ebola virus in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Lab tests of a small number of patient samples have confirmed that the pathogen is an Ebola virus. —Veronique Greenwood, Time, 15 May 2026

But unlike almost all of the country’s past Ebola outbreaks, preliminary laboratory results suggest that the current outbreak is not caused by the Zaire Ebola virus strain. —Beth Mole, ArsTechnica, 15 May 2026

Infected by the communicable Ebola virus while treating patients in Liberia, Brantly became the first person in the U.S. to have the disease and one of the first to survive it, along with his colleague and aid worker Nancy Writebol, who arrived three days later. —Suzanne Van Atten, AJC.com, 9 Apr. 2026

In addition to the Ebola virus, which causes Ebola virus disease, there are also the Sudan virus, Bundibugyo virus and Taï Forest virus that can cause severe illness in humans. —Katia Hetter, CNN Money, 24 Sep. 2025

Word History

Etymology

from the Ebola River in the northern Democratic Republic of the Congo (former Zaire)

Note: According to Peter Piot, a Belgian member of an international commission formed to investigate the first outbreak of the virus in 1976, the name was chosen by members of the commission (including the French physician Pierre Sureau and the Americans Karl Johnson and Joel Breman) from a map of Zaire at the Fonds Médical Tropical, a non-governmental organization in Kinshasa where the members were lodged. Though the Ebola River (a headwater stream of the Mongala River, a tributary of the Congo) turned out to be a considerable distance from the village of Yambuku where the fever was first observed, the name was nonetheless retained. The name "Yambuku virus" was avoided because of the stigma it would have attached to the village. (See Peter Piot, No Time to Lose: A Life in Pursuit of Deadly Viruses, W.W. Norton, 2012, pp. 56-57.)

First Known Use

1976, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for Ebola virus

• adenovirus
• baculovirus
• coronavirus
• enterovirus
• poliovirus
• antivirus
• herpesvirus
• parvovirus
• reovirus
• retrovirus
• rhinovirus
• rotavirus

Medical Definition

Ebola virus

noun

: any of several filoviruses (genus Orthoebolavirus and especially O. zairense) of African origin that cause an often fatal hemorrhagic fever