as in severity
biting sharpness of feeling or expression
the virulency of his critical judgments became the stuff of Broadway legend
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of virulency
The virulency of Covid-19 trained even those of us who shop locally out of principal to purchase online.
—
Marc Peruzzi, Outside Online, 2 Mar. 2021
Marc Peruzzi, Outside Online, 2 Mar. 2021
Recent Examples of Synonyms for virulency
Noun
-
Bruce Lehr, Lunger's attorney, disputed the severity of the charges.—
Anna McAllister,
CBS News,
22 Apr. 2026
-
Why High-Speed Rural Corridors Increase California Crash Severity Beyond urban centers, crash severity often increases in rural corridors where higher speeds are more common.—
Gretchen Wittenmyer-Stone,
Sacbee.com,
21 Apr. 2026
Noun
-
Just make sure to choose limes with slightly thinner skin for less bitterness.—
Melinda Salchert,
Southern Living,
19 Apr. 2026
-
Weeks after American Idol audiences booed her for giving honest feedback, Carrie Underwood responded not with bitterness but with blue boxes.—
Samantha Agate,
Kansas City Star,
16 Apr. 2026
Noun
-
More than half a century of Cold War hostilities were thawing.—
Kate Linthicum,
Los Angeles Times,
20 Apr. 2026
-
The goal of negotiations between Lebanon and Israel is to end hostilities and the occupation of southern Lebanon, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said in a statement today.—
Will Clark,
NBC news,
20 Apr. 2026
Noun
-
To predict how an outbreak will progress, epidemiologists often use stock-and-flow diagrams: illustrations featuring stocks of people (susceptible, infected, recovered, dead) and arrows showing flows between them based on factors such as exposure or virulence.—
Quanta Magazine,
Quanta Magazine,
4 Mar. 2026
-
Genes involved in adaptation, such as those linked to virulence, metabolism or host interaction, also move with them.—
Lily Peck,
The Conversation,
17 Feb. 2026
Noun
-
In ominous voiceover, Sam feels her bile rising as Hathaway’s Mary approaches after a decade-long estrangement.—
David Rooney,
HollywoodReporter,
14 Apr. 2026
-
So often, the word nostalgia felt coated in bile—a nostalgia act.—
Danielle Parker,
CBS News,
14 Apr. 2026
Noun
-
But Lloyd’s version brims with mordancy.—
Sarah Weinman,
New York Times,
10 Feb. 2023
-
The gray-tint, cross-hatched drawings evoke George Cruikshank and Samuel Palmer, but the mordancy is vintage Sendak.—
The Week Staff,
The Week,
17 Oct. 2022
Noun
-
The jury did not find Mimms guilty of malice murder.—
Dan Raby,
CBS News,
17 Apr. 2026
-
Coel bites into the acerbic bitterness of that history in their early exchanges, with a vein of malice in questions supposedly intended to reveal who Mary has become and hence what kind of dress will feel true to her.—
David Rooney,
HollywoodReporter,
14 Apr. 2026
Noun
-
But fights are just as integral to the Netflix show created by Lee Sung Jin, and the series’ sound team needed to do even more meticulous work building visceral senses of anger, stress, and dread that slowly swallow up the characters and steer them into making a compounding set of poor decisions.—
Sarah Shachat,
IndieWire,
24 Apr. 2026
-
As Columbia, Rodriguez takes big, bold swings, shifting from manic exuberance to bruised vulnerability to feral anger over the course of the night.—
Dave Quinn,
PEOPLE,
24 Apr. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Virulency.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/virulency. Accessed 25 Apr. 2026.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
