infestuous

English

Etymology

From Latin infestus. See infest (adjective).

Adjective

infestuous (comparative more infestuous, superlative most infestuous)

1. Mischievous; harmful; dangerous.
   • 1593, Thomas Nashe, Christs Teares over Jerusalem, London: Andrewe Wise, Ronald B. McKerrow (editor), The Works of Thomas Nashe, London: A.H. Bullen, 1904, Volume 2, p. 69,^[1]

     The Store-houses burnt, the siege harde plyed, the waste of victuals great, the husbanding of them none at all, there fell such an infestuous unsaciable famine amongst them, that if all the stones of Jerusalem had been bread, and they should have tyred on them, yet woulde they have beene behind hand with their appetite.

   • 1691, Arthur Gorges (translator), The Wisdom of the Ancients by Francis Bacon (1609), London, “Perseus, or War,” p. 24,^[2]

     Perseus is said to have been employed by Pallas for the destroying of Medusa, who was very infestuous to the Western Parts of the World, and especially about the utmost Coasts of Hiberia.

   • 1919, Frederick Palmer, Our Greatest Battle (The Meuse-Argonne), New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., Chapter 11, p. 185,^[3]

     Both division reports speak of having taken Varennes, which is well spread on the river banks. There was room enough for the troops of both to operate, with plenty of work for both to do before their common efforts had cleared the ruins of their infestuous occupants.

   • 1996, Jim Wright, Balance of Power: Presidents and Congress from the Era of McCarthy to the Age of Gingrich, Turner Publications, p. 308,^[4]

     The PLO, egged on by Khadafi of Libya and Saddam Hussein of Iraq, became an infestuous thorn in Jordanian King Hussein’s side, and virtually overran Lebanon.