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The very word ‘virus’ began as a contradiction. We inherited from the Roman Empire, where it meant, at once, the venom of a snake or the semen of a man. Creation and destruction in one word.

Over the centuries, ‘virus’ took on another meaning: it signified any contagious substance that could spread disease.

[…]

‘Virus’ only began to take on its modern meaning as the nineteenth century came to a close, thanks to an agricultural catastrophe [in the Netherlands].

— A Planet of Viruses by Carl Zimmer

Just about wherever scientists look — deep within the earth, on grains of sand blown off of the Sahara Desert, under mile-thick layers of Antarctic ice — they find viruses. And when they look in familiar places, they find new viruses.

— A Planet of Viruses by Carl Zimmer

[Viruses] move DNA between species, provide new genetic martial for evolution, and regulate vast populations of organisms.

— A Planet of Viruses by Carl Zimmer