pestilent
Americanadjective
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producing or tending to produce infectious or contagious, often epidemic, disease; pestilential.
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destructive to life; deadly; poisonous.
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injurious to peace, morals, etc.; pernicious.
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troublesome, annoying, or mischievous.
adjective
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annoying; irritating
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highly destructive morally or physically; pernicious
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infected with or likely to cause epidemic or infectious disease
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of pestilent
1350–1400; Middle English < Latin pestilent- (stem of pestilēns ) unhealthy, noxious, alteration of pestilentus, equivalent to pesti- (stem of pestis ) pest + -lentus -lent
Explanation
When something is pestilent, it's contagious and often deadly. At one time, polio was considered to be a pestilent disease in North America. Something harmful that spreads — whether it's an illness or violence or a really bad idea — can be described with the adjective pestilent. The rise of poverty in some places, or the spread of chicken pox among preschoolers, are both pestilent. The Latin origin is pestilentem, which comes from pestilis, "of the nature of a plague," with its root of pestis, "deadly contagious disease."
Vocabulary lists containing pestilent
Romeo and Juliet
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The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
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Othello
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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.
A swath of the Santa Clarita Valley is under a first-of-its-kind quarantine after the invasive and pestilent tau fruit fly was found in the area, officials announced this week.
From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 28, 2023
Acland saw polluted water as a potential contributor to pestilent air, not as a medium for the spread of an invisible agent of disease.
From Scientific American • Jan. 29, 2019
Still, “The Good Mothers” is casting a wider net, indicting an entire pestilent culture.
From Washington Post • Jul. 5, 2018
The gloomy soliloquy that follows, in which Hamlet calls the world a “foul and pestilent congregation of vapors,” seems more a youthful pose than an agonized cry.
From New York Times • Oct. 3, 2012
More beautiful than the sight of a spring field after three years of living in that pestilent cesspit of a city.
From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss
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.
