Microbiology

The twenty-sixth entry is o leque de hospedeiros, and the English term for it, « the host range », carries a word that does several jobs at once. « A host » is the one who receives: the man whose house it is, the city that stages a tournament. « A host » is also the organism a virus or a parasite lives in, which is the sense wanted here. « A host » is, thirdly, a great multitude — « a host of problems », « a host of reasons » — and a reader who meets that turn in a laboratory report has to stop and decide, because « a host of viruses » says nothing about hosts at all. Fourthly, with a capital letter, « the Host » is the consecrated bread of the Mass. The four are not one word grown wide. They are three Latin words that fell together in English spelling: hospes, the guest-friend; hostis, the stranger and then the enemy, whence an army; and hostia, the animal offered in sacrifice. Portuguese kept all three apart, and the list can be read straight off: o anfitrião, o hospedeiro, a hoste, a hóstia.