pestiferous
Americanadjective
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spreading or bearing disease, especially deadly epidemic disease; pestilential.
pestiferous rats.
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pernicious; evil.
The wicked duke's pestiferous rule blighted the countryside.
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Informal. mischievous; troublesome or annoying.
Those pestiferous boys won't leave my apple tree alone.
adjective
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informal troublesome; irritating
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breeding, carrying, or spreading infectious disease
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corrupting; pernicious
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of pestiferous
First recorded in 1425–75; late Middle English, from Latin pestiferus “pestilential,” equivalent to pesti- (stem of pestis ) + -ferus; see origin at pest, -ferous
Vocabulary lists containing pestiferous
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.
Some experts believe other bugs and animals — including those considered pestiferous, like rats — are thriving from secondary impacts of all that H20, like increased vegetation.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 21, 2023
Even before we brutally crammed them into pestiferous cages and messed with their DNA, chickens were just awesomely good at producing eggs and healthy meat.
From The Verge ● Jul. 24, 2016
After the Florentine physician Francesco Redi published repeated debunkings of his work, Kircher enlisted a younger Jesuit to compose an “Apologetic Forerunner to Kircherian Studies” defending him against “the pestiferous breath of poisoned invectives.”
From New York Times ● Dec. 30, 2012
This time he contends with a computer-generated whirlpool and a pestiferous piscine cloud whose effects are more gruesome than genuinely scary.
From New York Times ● Aug. 22, 2010
While the rest of the family tossed and dozed, I secretly made my way to the San Marcos River bank and enjoyed a daily interlude of no school, no pestiferous brothers, and no Mother.
From "The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate" by Jacqueline Kelly
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.
