blight
Americannoun
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Plant Pathology.
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the rapid and extensive discoloration, wilting, and death of plant tissues.
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a disease so characterized.
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any cause of impairment, destruction, ruin, or frustration.
Extravagance was the blight of the family.
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the state or result of being blighted or deteriorated; dilapidation; decay.
urban blight.
verb (used with object)
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blights,
present (3rd person singular)
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blighted,
past participle, past
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blighting
present participle
verb (used without object)
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blights,
present (3rd person singular)
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blighted,
past participle, past
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blighting
present participle
noun
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any plant disease characterized by withering and shrivelling without rotting See also potato blight
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any factor, such as bacterial attack or air pollution, that causes the symptoms of blight in plants
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a person or thing that mars or prevents growth, improvement, or prosperity
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an ugly urban district
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the state or condition of being blighted or spoilt
verb
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to cause or suffer a blight
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(tr) to frustrate or disappoint
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(tr) to spoil; destroy
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Any of numerous plant diseases that cause leaves, stems, fruits, and tissues to wither and die. Rust, mildew, and smut are blights.
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The bacterium, fungus, or virus that causes such a disease.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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blightsimple
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blightssimple
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have blightedperfect
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has blightedperfect
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am blightingprogressive
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are blightingprogressive
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is blightingprogressive
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have been blightingperfect progressive
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has been blightingperfect progressive
Past
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blightedsimple
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had blightedperfect
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was blightingprogressive
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were blightingprogressive
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had been blightingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of blight
First recorded in 1605–15; of uncertain origin
Explanation
A blight is a disease that hurts plants and makes their leaves wither. It can also affect neighborhoods. Urban blight refers to a part of the city where things are falling apart. Blight rhymes with bright, but it’s the opposite of sunshine; instead of making plants grow, it cripples them. The Irish Potato Famine was an example of a blight. In 1845, more than a third of the potato crops were ruined. The plants turned black and their leaves dried up and people who relied on potatoes for most of their meals also withered and experienced extreme hardship and hunger. You might want to think of it this way: a blight makes people — or plants — fight for their lives.
Vocabulary lists containing blight
St. Patrick's Day Vocabulary: Words With Irish and Gaelic Roots
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Oedipus the King
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Unit 3: Compelling Evidence
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
It was triggered by potato blight which spread across Europe.
From BBC ● Aug. 5, 2026
Mountains of festering trash blight the streets of the capital, as dump trucks don’t have fuel to pick up the waste.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 1, 2026
NCST, a nonprofit that aims to boost affordable housing and fight neighborhood blight, praised provisions related to preservation and rehabilitation.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 22, 2026
The pandemic was and is a blight on compassion.
From Salon ● Jun. 13, 2026
As if the blight was our fault and we wanted the crops to rot in the fields and had planned all along not to pay the rent to the lord of our cottage.
From "Blood on the River" by Elisa Carbone
I wish we could point to a new robust corner of Minnehaha and Lake Street where the condemned Third Precinct still blights the corner, but we can’t.
From Salon ● Jun. 1, 2025
To many, it’s ugly vandalism that blights the city.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 17, 2024
Much of Western Europe is going through its wettest spring in living memory and even in early June, land lays unsown and blights are ravaging the lands, he said.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 3, 2024
He says the open-pit mine, situated 500m from his doorstep, blights people's lives by using explosives to blast away at the rock two or three times per week.
From BBC ● Apr. 29, 2024
Mars has no insects, parasites, or blights to deal with, and the Hab maintains perfect growing temperature and moisture at all times.
From "The Martian" by Andy Weir
Back pain is one of the UK's most common conditions that has blighted millions over generations.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 6, 2026
Since then they have knocked down 115 blighted homes, helping trigger new construction and renovations on those blocks.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 4, 2026
The army has been blighted by several scandals -- particularly over an unpopular mobilisation drive, the treatment of conscripts and reports of widespread absenteeism and equipment shortages in some units.
From Barron's ● Jul. 22, 2026
The latter stages of McCullum's tenure have been blighted by off-field issues.
From BBC ● Jul. 13, 2026
But divinity should not be blighted by death.
From "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel
Slavery shaped the Americas for four centuries, blighting the entire hemisphere.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 4, 2026
The 76-year-old retired state employee, former gun store owner and avid elk hunter from La Grande, Oregon, is on a mission to keep turbines and transmission towers from blighting the rural landscape.
From Salon ● Aug. 17, 2025
Victoria Vyvyan, president of the CLA, said: "These fly-tipping figures barely scratch the surface of a crime that's blighting rural communities, with incidents on private land going unrecorded on a mass scale."
From BBC ● Jan. 17, 2024
Next time you feel like littering, think of the bird you may harm and the beauty you are blighting.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 25, 2023
This I had believed with all my being, but now, though still inwardly affirming that belief, I felt a blighting hurt which prevented me from trying further to defend myself.
From "Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
