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''pestiferous'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20250816013434-00-⌔

pestiferous - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

pestiferous (comparative more pestiferous, superlative most pestiferous)

  • containing organisms that cause contagious diseases
    • ✤ because he hath vouchsafed to preserue our nation from such fountains, from serpents and venemous wormes, & from al other pestiferous & contagious creatures.1
    • ✤ In these solemn moments man discovers the germ of those vices, which like the Java tree shed a pestiferous vapour around—death is in the shade!2
    • ✤ and bears the body of our dear brother here departed to a hemmed-in churchyard, pestiferous and obscene, whence malignant diseases are communicated to the bodies of our dear brothers and sisters who have not departed…3
    • ✤ Wherever there is a vacant space the authorities have allowed refugees to put up pestiferous shacks, which now flank in unbroken lines the country roads leading into Rangoon, the railway tracks, and the shores of the Royal Lake.4
  • annoying, vexatious
    • ✤ No, prelate; such is thy audacious wickedness,/Thy lewd, pestiferous, and dissentious pranks,/As very infants prattle of thy pride.5
    • ✤ and if any could have hanged his hindering and pestiferous council and set him free, he would have answered Joan’s prayer and set her in the field.6
    • ✤ Lois rescues Clark from the pestiferous curly…7

Etymology

Mid 15th century, in sense “mischievous, pernicious”, from Latin pestiferus (“bearing plague”), from pestifer, from pestis (“plague”) + ferre (“carry”) (see infer).8

By surface analysis, pest +‎ -i- (“bearing, carrying”) +‎ -ferous.

Pronunciation

  • (Canada) IPA: /ˌpɛsˈtɪfəɹəs/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -ɪfəɹəs

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1589, Richard Hakluyt, The Principall Navigations, Voiages, and Discoveries of the English Nation, […], London: […] George Bishop and Ralph Newberie, deputies to Christopher Barker, […], →OCLC: ↩

  2. 1791 (date written), Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], published 1792, →OCLC: ↩

  3. 1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC: ↩

  4. 1952, Norman Lewis, Golden Earth: ↩

  5. 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC,: ↩

  6. 1896, Mark Twain, Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc: ↩

  7. 1938, Jerome Siegel, Joe Shuster, “Superman”, in Action Comics, 7, page 2: ↩

  8. Douglas Harper (2001–2026), “pestiferous”, in Online Etymology Dictionary. ↩

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