prion

A genus of Procellariidæ, having the bill expanded and strongly beset along the cutting edges with lamellæ like the teeth of a saw; the saw-billed petrels. P. vittata is a blue-and-white petrel inhabiting southern seas. Also Pachyptila.

any of several types of protein particle lacking nucleic acid, believed to be the cause of certain slow-developing infectious diseases such as scapie in sheep, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and Kuru in humans.

A petrel of the genus Pachyptila.

A self-propagating misfolded conformer of a protein that is responsible for a number of diseases that affect the brain and other neural tissue.

(microbiology) an infectious protein particle similar to a virus but lacking nucleic acid; thought to be the agent responsible for scrapie and other degenerative diseases of the nervous system