as in severity
biting sharpness of feeling or expression
the virulency of his critical judgments became the stuff of Broadway legend
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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
-
Depending on the severity, menopause symptoms can affect a woman’s quality of life.—
Jocelyn Solis-Moreira,
Flow Space,
11 Feb. 2026
-
The severity of the weather was aggravated by heat in Chicago, where highs were reaching over 90 degrees.—
Sara Tenenbaum,
CBS News,
11 Feb. 2026
Noun
-
Tahini’s bitterness balances the intense sweetness of dates, the traditional Ramadan break-the-fast food; stuffing dates with tahini is a Ramadan treat.—
Faye Levy,
Oc Register,
11 Feb. 2026
-
The bitterness is concentrated in the green shoot itself.—
Caitlin Beale,
Health,
11 Feb. 2026
Noun
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Instead, an arcane academic skirmish has devolved into open hostilities.—
Gideon Lewis-Kraus,
New Yorker,
9 Feb. 2026
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Fox News Digital reviewed internal Signal chat messages from Seattle-area rapid response groups showing that the rejection of whistles triggered open hostility.—
Asra Q. Nomani,
FOXNews.com,
7 Feb. 2026
Noun
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Even controversial research aimed at enhancing pathogen transmissibility and virulence can yield valuable insights into how pathogens naturally evolve and how to prepare for future pandemics.—
David Gillum,
STAT,
22 Jan. 2026
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Donald Trump’s back-to-back tirades this week against Somali immigrants in Minnesota, many of whom are U.S. citizens, brought into the open the kind of virulence that, during his first term, the President mostly tried to keep behind closed doors.—
Cristian Farias,
New Yorker,
4 Dec. 2025
Noun
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The compounds that cause the bitterness in the plant stimulate the production and flow of bile from the liver and gallbladder.—
Cory Martin,
Verywell Health,
9 Feb. 2026
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The full extent of his martyrdom is hard to measure over the course of a movie that barely engages with anything beyond its own bile.—
David Ehrlich,
IndieWire,
29 Jan. 2026
Noun
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But Lloyd’s version brims with mordancy.—
Sarah Weinman,
New York Times,
10 Feb. 2023
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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
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Colt Gray, now 16, has been indicted on 55 felony counts, including four counts of malice murder, and will be tried as an adult, according to court documents.—
Eric Levenson,
CNN Money,
8 Feb. 2026
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Nevermind that this is obviously the work of someone acting deliberately, stealthily and with obvious malice – not a drunk stumbling into their homes.—
Erik Kain,
Forbes.com,
29 Jan. 2026
Noun
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The manipulations also affected how much sadness and anger participants reported feeling while scrolling.—
Simon Makin,
Scientific American,
13 Feb. 2026
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Meanwhile, Iran at home faces still-simmering anger over its wide-ranging suppression of all dissent in the Islamic Republic.—
Jon Gambrell,
Chicago Tribune,
13 Feb. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Virulency.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/virulency. Accessed 15 Feb. 2026.
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