pestilential
Americanadjective
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producing or tending to produce pestilence.
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pertaining to or of the nature of pestilence, especially bubonic plague.
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pernicious; harmful.
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annoyingly troublesome.
adjective
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dangerous or troublesome; harmful or annoying
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of, causing, or resembling pestilence
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of pestilential
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English word from Medieval Latin word pestilentiālis. See pestilent, -ial
Explanation
Infectious, plague-causing, and definitely disease-bearing: If it's likely to bring along pestilence, then it's pestilential. Today we know that dirty hands, unclean water, and bubonic plague-carrying rats can all be potentially pestilential. But back in the olden days, the culprit wasn't so clear. Too much merriment, too little merriment, too much fresh air, too little fresh air — all were considered pestilential at one time or another.
Vocabulary lists containing pestilential
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
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The Sun Also Rises
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Metamorphoses
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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.
Beginning with the Italianate geometries of Rio de Janeiro’s Passeio Público, the country’s first municipal garden, built over a pestilential lagoon between 1779 and ’83, Brazilian parks often mirrored European ones.
From New York Times • Mar. 22, 2024
A garden pond can be either a pestilential mess or the beating heart of a landscape, depending on how well it is designed, engineered and maintained.
From Washington Post • Jun. 29, 2021
In those cases, it can be hard to identify the pestilential pooper: livestock, reptiles, rodents, and dogs can all spread Salmonella, along with other, less common animals.
From The Verge • Dec. 12, 2018
Foetid and pestilential, this wasteland has long been a haven for the waifs of Kenya’s fifth city, the country’s highland capital and long-distance running heartland.
From The Guardian • Oct. 10, 2016
"Have you been in this pestilential city long?"
From "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway
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.
