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prevalence

pre·va·lence

UK/ˈpɹɛvələns/ US/pɹɪˈveɪləns/ uncommon

noun

1.

the quality of prevailing generally; being widespread

  • “he was surprised by the prevalence of optimism about the future”
2.

(epidemiology) the ratio (for a given time period) of the number of occurrences of a disease or event to the number of units at risk in the population

3.

a superiority in numbers or amount

  • “there is a preponderance of Blacks in our prisons”
Synonyms

Origin

Borrowed from Middle French prévalence.

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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.