pest
noun
Simple meaning
Any unwanted and destructive insect or other animal that attacks food or crops or livestock etc.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
pehstIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈpɛst
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Any unwanted and destructive insect or other animal that attacks food or crops or livestock etc.
“He sprayed the garden to get rid of pests.”
Any destructive insect that attacks crops or livestock; an agricultural pest.
An animal regarded as a nuisance, destructive, or a parasite, vermin.
An annoying person, a nuisance.
A persistently annoying person
The corresponding part of the current-day city of Budapest, on the eastern side of the Danube.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- General and technical use
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Any unwanted and destructive insect or other animal that attacks food or crops or livestock etc.
Used this way, pest is a common word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
“He sprayed the garden to get rid of pests.”
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use pest
- “He sprayed the garden to get rid of pests.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
A chemical used to kill pests (as rodents or insects).
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- insecticidenoun
- pesticidenoun
- beetlenoun
- mothnoun
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.