Talk:virulent

Etymology
regarding this edit, according to the Middle English Dictionary the “of putrefaction: extremely severe” sense is uncertain, hence the question mark. Do you have a source confirming it to be correct? — SGconlaw (talk) 04:27, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Whoops, no, thank you. I intended to change the formatting and for some reason deleted the question mark while doing so. I've replaced it with something (I think) a bit clearer. But if the sense is uncertain, it seems out of place in an etymology section. If there were an existing Middle English entry, I'd just remove it... Andrew Sheedy (talk) 04:42, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
 * : I assume there are some Middle English quotations where the word appears, but the meaning is somewhat obscure. Not sure this should be a reason for omitting the sense entirely; I recall we have some English entries (not sure which ones exactly) where the meanings are also marked as uncertain. — SGconlaw (talk) 06:33, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I just meant that an etymology is maybe not the best place for it. I'd be fine with it being in an entry, but once that entry is created, I think it should be removed from the etymology. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 07:27, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
 * mmmm, why? We usually do give brief glosses in etymologies, as far as I'm aware. — SGconlaw (talk) 07:59, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, but only to illustrate how the meaning of a word evolved over time and across languages. Not to exhaustively list every definition. An uncertain definition doesn't have a place in an etymology, unless it's important for illustrating the development of a word's meaning. I don't think that applies here. I think some editors go overboard with the Middle and Old English glosses in etymologies...often they're more complete than the definitions in the entries themselves. I don't get too upset over them, given that English etymologies are often the only place on our dictionary that these words are defined, but once they have their own entries, I think the glosses should be simplified. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 08:03, 6 December 2020 (UTC)