contagious

Universal Words adjective 1 a contagious disease spreads by people touching each other: Scarlet fever is highly contagious. * (figurative) His enthusiasm was contagious (= spread quickly to other people). * a contagious laugh 2 [notusuallybeforenoun] if a person is contagious, they have a disease that can be spread to other people by touch compareINFECTIOUS contagiously adverb