staph

This term is a colloquial clipping of the scientific name Staphylococcus. It is used predominantly in clinical and casual medical conversations to refer to the bacteria or the resulting infection without using the full taxonomic designation. While it appears in medical charts, it carries a less formal tone than the full Latinate term.

Because it refers to a genus of bacteria, it functions as a mass noun when discussing the pathogen itself. When referring to a specific instance of an infection, it is treated as an uncountable entity, typically requiring a modifier like "a case of" or "an infection" to denote a single occurrence.