mousepox

or mouse pox

[ mous-poks ]

noun

, Veterinary Pathology.

1. ectromelia ( def 2 ).

Word History and Origins

Origin of mousepox¹

First recorded in 1945–50; mouse + pox

Example Sentences

Colin Carlson, a biologist at Georgetown University, has started to worry about mousepox.

From New York Times

One of the more famous examples is how the introduction of an extra gene in mousepox – the mouse version of smallpox – made it far more lethal and able to infect vaccinated individuals.

From The Guardian

By adding a single gene to its DNA, Australian researchers turned a mousepox virus that normally causes only mild symptoms in rodents into a virulent killer that wiped out all their lab mice in less than 10 days.

From Time Magazine Archive