viroidadj.n.

1841 Lancet 3 July 520/1 External viroid diseases, as variola, &c.

1842 R. Stevens in Lancet 25 June 442/1 To have removed as much of the viroid secretion as possible, externally, using soap and water.

1945 H. A. Reimann in Jrnl. Amer. Med. Assoc. 3 Mar. 543/2 Why not use a positive term such as viral pneumonia, or virus-like pneumonia, or, better still, viroid pneumonia?

1946 Amer. Jrnl. Med. 1 515/2 The disease is generally referred to by the name originally suggested by Reimann, namely, ‘virus pneumonia’. The same writer has more recently suggested the term ‘viroid’.

1959 Oxf. Mag. 26 Feb. 286/2 The relationship between viruses and other ‘viroid’ particles.

1966 Amer. Naturalist 100 163 Mutation as a generator of cancer virus was suggested long ago by Altenburg (1946), who proposed that the source might be a cellular ‘viroid’ constituent that had itself evolved from an infectious agent.

1971 T. O. Diener in Virology 45 426/1 To distinguish pathological conditions incited by viroids from those incited by viruses, the term ‘viroid disease’ is proposed.

1982 Science 17 Sept. 1148/2 The kinetics of viroid circularization were very rapid.

2005 D. P. Clark Molecular Biol. xvii. 480 Viroid RNA does not contain any genes that encode proteins; it merely carries signals for its own replication by the host machinery.

1946 E. Altenburg in Amer. Naturalist 80 559 It is conceivable that there exist ultra-microscopic organisms which are akin to viruses but which are useful symbionts, and that these symbionts occur universally within the cells of larger organisms. We might call these supposed symbionts viroids.

1953 S. E. Luria Gen. Virol. xviii. 361 Mutations of viroids could also give rise to nontransmissible, abnormal plasmagenes and be responsible..for the tumoral transformation of cells.

1963 New Scientist 20 June 652/1 If blind natural selection could conjure man out of a viroid in a couple of billion years, what could not man's conscious and purposeful efforts achieve?

1983 Jrnl. Theoret. Biol. 105 591 Three hypotheses concerning the origin of viruses have endured..: (1) The protobiont theory, which advocates that viruses had their origin in precellular systems (‘viroid’, Altenburg, 1946) which co-evolved with the first cellular organisms.

1971 T. O. Diener in Virology 45 426/1 I propose the term ‘viroid’ for such entities. Altenburg (1946) introduced this term to designate hypothetical symbionts, akin to viruses... If, however, the ‘viroid’ is redefined operationally and in modern terms to encompass nucleic acid species with the properties discussed here, the term serves a useful function.

1981 Times 2 Apr. 16 There is a parallel class of agents which infect plants, the viroids, which consist solely of strands of RNA.

1993 R. Dawkins in B. Dahlbom Dennett & his Critics i. 14 Cellular machinery is so friendly towards DNA duplication that it is small wonder cells play host to DNA parasites—viruses, viroids, plasmids and a riff-raff of other genetic fellow travelers.

2003 Science 13 June 1635/2 Viroids manage to migrate..and reproduce, causing maladies such as pear blister canker and cadang-cadang disease of coconuts.