English Dictionary

PESTIFEROUS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does pestiferous mean? 

PESTIFEROUS (adjective)
  The adjective PESTIFEROUS has 4 senses:

1. contaminated with infecting organismsplay

2. likely to spread and cause an epidemic diseaseplay

3. tending to corrupt or pervertplay

4. causing irritation or annoyanceplay

  Familiarity information: PESTIFEROUS used as an adjective is uncommon.


 Dictionary entry details 


PESTIFEROUS (adjective)


Sense 1

Meaning:

Contaminated with infecting organisms

Synonyms:

dirty; pestiferous

Context example:

obliged to go into infected rooms

Similar:

infected; septic (containing or resulting from disease-causing organisms)


Sense 2

Meaning:

Likely to spread and cause an epidemic disease

Synonyms:

pestiferous; pestilent; pestilential; plaguey

Context example:

plaguey fevers

Similar:

epidemic ((especially of medicine) of disease or anything resembling a disease; attacking or affecting many individuals in a community or a population simultaneously)


Sense 3

Meaning:

Tending to corrupt or pervert

Synonyms:

corruptive; perversive; pestiferous

Similar:

evil (morally bad or wrong)


Sense 4

Meaning:

Causing irritation or annoyance

Synonyms:

annoying; bothersome; galling; irritating; nettlesome; pesky; pestering; pestiferous; plaguey; plaguy; teasing; vexatious; vexing

Context example:

it is vexing to have to admit you are wrong

Similar:

disagreeable (not to your liking)


 Context examples 


He had hitched his wagon to a star and been landed in a pestiferous marsh.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

“That comes—as you call it—of being arrant asses,” retorted the doctor, “and not having sense enough to know honest air from poison, and the dry land from a vile, pestiferous slough. I think it most probable—though of course it's only an opinion—that you'll all have the deuce to pay before you get that malaria out of your systems. Camp in a bog, would you? Silver, I'm surprised at you. You're less of a fool than many, take you all round; but you don't appear to me to have the rudiments of a notion of the rules of health.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)



 Learn English with... Proverbs 
"A watched kettle never boils." (English proverb)

"Good remains are nice to have." (Breton proverb)

"Experimenting is the great science." (Arabic proverb)

"Away from the eye, out of the heart." (Dutch proverb)



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