pestilence
noun
Simple meaning
Any epidemic disease with a high death rate.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
pehstuhluhnsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈpɛstələns
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 epidemic disease with a high death rate
Any epidemic disease that is highly contagious, infectious, virulent and devastating.
The personification of pestilence, often depicted riding a white horse.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Rare
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Any epidemic disease with a high death rate
Used this way, pestilence is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It carries more force than its gentler alternatives. It turns up most in medicine or healthcare and personal or emotional discussion contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Strong
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Everyday but emotionally strong
Where it naturally appears
- Medicine/healthcare
- Personal/emotional discussion
- Literature/storytelling
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use pestilence
- “Racism is a pestilence at the heart of the nation.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: any epidemic disease with a high death rate
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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.