fomes
/ˈfoʊ.miːz/obsolete
fomes is a noun meaning “Morbid matter created by a disease” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-O-M-E-S and has 2 syllables, and it appears about once in every 59 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of fomes is fomites.
What does fomes mean?
noun
- 1
obsoleteMorbid matter created by a disease.
- 2
archaicSynonym of fomite: a substance able to communicate infection between people.
Toys are common fomites.
- 3
archaicAnything which similarly facilitates the spread of something similarly deleterious.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce fomes?
- UK /ˈfəʊmiːz/
- US /ˈfoʊ.miːz/
Fomes has 2 syllables (counted from the pronunciation).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is fomes?
Fomes appears about once in every 59 million words in written English, the 240,237th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Where does fomes come from?
From medical Latin fōmes (“fomite”), a figurative extension of its original sense of kindling, tinder, etc. Gradually supplanted in use by fomite, a mistaken backformation of its plural form fomites, from Latin fōmitēs.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).