“Virulent bacteria”

Question

I read

Health officials were worried enough about an unusually virulent outbreak of food-borne illness from the E. coli bacteria,

This seems so wrong.

1. Is there a name for it? (mixed metaphors, for example)
2. Is it recommended?

Answer 1

Oxymoron involves a direct opposition between the connotation of the noun and the denotation of the adjective, e.g. jumbo shrimp. This is not that, since "virulent" is not derived from the modern sense of "virus." According the OED, virulence refers to the contagiousness of a disease from as far back the late 16th century. While virus was used to describe pathogenic factors at least that far back, the modern sense of a virus as a factor distinct from bacteria did not occur until 1900.

Answer 2

It sounds like an oxymoron (using contradictory terms), but it's not technically one. Moreover, bacteria and virulent are not contradictory, if you think about it in terms of the time line. The terms introduced, with their shifts in meaning, are:

• 14th century: virus means “poisonous substance” (from the Latin virus) and virulent means “full of poisonous substance” (from the Latin virulentus, “full of poison”)
• 16th century: virulent acquires its meaning of “violent, spiteful”.
• 1728: first recorded use of virus to mean “pathogen agent”.
• later, it becomes formally defined as “infectious agent that can replicate only inside the living cells of organisms”, as opposed to bacteria.

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^{All the above thanks to Etymonline}

Answer 3

Virulence is defined as

vir·u·lence definition Pronunciation: /ˈvir-(y)ə-lən(t)s/ Function: n : the quality or state of being virulent: as a : relative severity and malignancy the virulence of a disease> b : the relative capacity of a pathogen to overcome body defenses compare INFECTIVITY Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2007 Merriam-Webster, Inc.

It's not specific to viruses, but can be used for any disease causing agent. The word virus was used for centuries before we were able to actually identify the things we presently call viruses and referred to poison/venom.

Answer 4

In the biomedical domain, virulence is used to describe how infectious a disease is, so it is appropriate to say that one strain of bacteria is more virulent than another. I'll see if I can find a reference for this usage for you.

It sounds odd to me to say a "virulent outbreak," but the definition of virulent and the definition of outbreak don't actually overlap, so it's not redundant. It ought to mean a surprising, infectious burst, which I think is the intended use here.

Answer 5

Virulent, when referring to a pathogen, means "highly infective."

It is perfectly fine to speak of "virulent bacteria," as "highly infective" refers to how easily (or fast) the infection spreads out.