pesticide
Americannoun
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pesticides
plural
noun
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A chemical used to kill harmful animals or plants. Pesticides are used especially in agriculture and around areas where humans live. Some are harmful to humans, either from direct contact or as residue on food, or are harmful to the environment because of their high toxicity, such as DDT (which is now banned in many countries). Pesticides include fungicides, herbicides, insecticides, and rodenticides.
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See more at fungicide herbicide insecticide
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of pesticide
Explanation
A pesticide is a bug-killing poison. You may have to resort to using a pesticide to battle the ants that have invaded your kitchen, even if you hate killing any creature. Pesticides are most often used to ward off insects or small animals living uninvited in a person's house, or in a garden or on a farm, when they are nibbling on plants or flowers. The Latin suffix cide means "killer," and in pesticide, it's combined with the English word pest, which means just what it sounds like — a troublesome annoyance.
Vocabulary lists containing pesticide
Earth Science - Middle School
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Earth Science: Natural Resources and the Environment
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Earth Day
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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:
On the first day, worker bees filtered out 95% of the pesticide and transferred it into the honeycomb.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 22, 2026
One is fish-killing pollution from farmlands’ fertilizer and pesticide runoffs.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 21, 2026
Paula Kahumbu, conservationist and head of Wildlife Direct, highlighted the "lack of evidence" supporting the pesticide theory.
From Barron's ● Aug. 13, 2026
It is California’s first major pesticide phaseout since 2019, when regulators announced the state was ending virtually all uses of chlorpyrifos, a pesticide linked to neurological issues.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 11, 2026
Maybe I’m being affected by the pesticide residual.
From "Challenger Deep" by Neal Shusterman
Schultz’s original bill would have phased out pesticides with PFAs and put California in line with Maine and Minnesota, which passed laws restricting their use.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 27, 2026
"When pesticides accumulate to the extent that the queen bee has eggs that are so loaded they may no longer develop properly, there could be a tipping point," Nicklisch said.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 22, 2026
Prices in Canada for chemicals and chemical products fell 3.4%, driven by fertilizers, pesticides and other chemical products as well as lower prices for plastic resins.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026
The resulting scarcity has pushed up prices of diesel fuel, fertilisers and pesticides.
From Barron's ● Aug. 18, 2026
Esteban Trueba went into town and returned weighed down with pesticides in every form known to man—powders, liquids, and pills—which he sprayed and sprinkled everywhere.
From "The House of the Spirits: A Novel" by Isabel Allende
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.
