PESTIS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does pestis mean? 

• PESTIS (noun)
  The noun PESTIS has 1 sense:

1. a serious (sometimes fatal) infection of rodents caused by Yersinia pestis and accidentally transmitted to humans by the bite of a flea that has bitten an infected animal

  Familiarity information: PESTIS used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PESTIS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A serious (sometimes fatal) infection of rodents caused by Yersinia pestis and accidentally transmitted to humans by the bite of a flea that has bitten an infected animal

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

pest; pestilence; pestis; plague

Hypernyms ("pestis" is a kind of...):

epidemic disease (any infectious disease that develops and spreads rapidly to many people)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "pestis"):

bubonic plague; glandular plague; pestis bubonica (the most common form of the plague in humans; characterized by chills, prostration, delirium and the formation of buboes in the armpits and groin; does not spread from person to person)

plague pneumonia; pneumonic plague; pulmonic plague (a rapidly progressive and frequently fatal form of the plague that can spread through the air from person to person; characterized by lung involvement with chill, bloody expectoration and high fever)

septicemic plague (an especially dangerous and generally fatal form of the plague in which infecting organisms invade the bloodstream; does not spread from person to person)

 Context examples 

Plague is an infection caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis.

(Plague, NIH: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases)

A Gram-negative bacterial infection caused by Yersinia pestis.

(Plague, NCI Thesaurus)