Today on a TV news channel I heard a doctor talking about the ways that virus can spread. He used a term “fomites” (pronounced “foe-mights”). I immediately knew what it was about, but I looked it up: “any inanimate object that, when contaminated with or exposed to infectious agents (such as pathogenic bacteria, viruses or fungi), can transfer disease to a new host.”
If contagious I, while shedding virus, cough on a surface, and you, unaware, later put your hand on it, you could pick up the virus I shed by coughing. The surface was, for you, a fomite.
This is from Latin, fomes, fomitis, m., “kindling-wood, touch-wood, tinder”.