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pestilent

pes·ti·lent

UK/ˈpɛstələnt/ US/ˈpɛstɪlənt/ uncommon archaic informal

adjective

1.
2.

likely to spread and cause an epidemic disease

  • “a pestilential malignancy in the air” Jonathan Swift
  • “plaguey fevers”
Synonyms
Similar

Origin

Middle English, from Latin pestilens, from Latin pestis.

Related words

Word family

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.