plague
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
See also: plagué
Contents
English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Middle English plage, borrowed from Old French plage, from Latin plāga (“blow, wound”), from to strike. Cognate with Middle Dutch plāghe (> Dutch plaag), plāghen (> Dutch plagen); Middle Low German plāge; Middle High German plāge, pflāge (> German Plage); plāgen (> German plagen); Swedish plåga; French plaie.
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
plague (countable and uncountable, plural plagues)
- (often used with the, sometimes capitalized: the Plague) The bubonic plague, the pestilent disease caused by the virulent bacterium Yersinia pestis.
- (pathology) An epidemic or pandemic caused by any pestilence, but specifically by the above disease.
- A widespread affliction, calamity or destructive influx, especially when seen as divine retribution.
- Ten Biblical plagues over Egypt, ranging from locusts to the death of the crown prince, finally forced Pharaoh to let Moses's people go.
- A grave nuisance, whatever greatly irritates
- Bart is an utter plague; his pranks never cease.
Synonyms[edit]
Derived terms[edit]
Terms derived from plague (noun)
Translations[edit]
specific disease "the Plague"
|
|
an epidemic or pandemic caused by any pestilence
|
|
widespread affliction, calamity
|
|
a nuisance
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Translations to be checked
|
|
Verb[edit]
plague (third-person singular simple present plagues, present participle plaguing, simple past and past participle plagued)
- (transitive) To harass, pester or annoy someone persistently or incessantly.
- 2018 February, Robert Draper, “They are Watching You—and Everything Else on the Planet: Technology and Our Increasing Demand for Security have Put Us All under Surveillance. Is Privacy Becoming just a Memory?”, in National Geographic[1], Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, ISSN 0027-9358, OCLC 1049714034, archived from the original on 14 June 2018:
- [W]hat we have here, they believe, are two members of gangs that have been plaguing Islington for more than a year. They snatch smartphones from pedestrians, then sell the items on the black market.
- 2015 April 15, Jonathan Martin, “For a Clinton, It’s Not Hard to Be Humble in an Effort to Regain Power”, in The New York Times[2]:
- Just as Mr. Clinton began a comeback with a down-home plea for forgiveness, Mrs. Clinton now seems determined to prove, perhaps to the point of overcompensation, that she will not repeat the mistakes that plagued her 2008 campaign.
- (transitive) To afflict with a disease or other calamity.
- Natural catastrophes plagued the colonists till they abandoned the pestilent marshland.
Derived terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
to harass
to afflict with disease or calamity
Spanish[edit]
Verb[edit]
plague
Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms borrowed from Old French
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Latin
- English 1-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- en:Pathology
- English verbs
- English transitive verbs
- English terms with quotations
- en:Death
- Spanish non-lemma forms
- Spanish verb forms
- Spanish forms of verbs ending in -ar
