pestiferous

Definitions

  • WordNet 3.6
    • adj pestiferous causing irritation or annoyance "tapping an annoying rhythm on his glass with his fork","aircraft noise is particularly bothersome near the airport","found it galling to have to ask permission","an irritating delay","nettlesome paperwork","a pesky mosquito","swarms of pestering gnats","a plaguey newfangled safety catch","a teasing and persistent thought annoyed him","a vexatious child","it is vexing to have to admit you are wrong"
    • adj pestiferous tending to corrupt or pervert
    • adj pestiferous likely to spread and cause an epidemic disease "a pestilential malignancy in the air"- Jonathan Swift","plaguey fevers"
    • adj pestiferous contaminated with infecting organisms "dirty wounds","obliged to go into infected rooms"- Jane Austen"
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Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
    • Pestiferous Noxious to peace, to morals, or to society; vicious; hurtful; destructive; as, a pestiferous demagogue. "Pestiferous reports of men very nobly held."
    • Pestiferous Pest-bearing; pestilential; noxious to health; malignant; infectious; contagious; as, pestiferous bodies. "Poor, pestiferous creatures begging alms.""Unwholesome and pestiferous occupations."
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Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
    • pestiferous Plague-bearing; pestilential; infectious; contagious: as, pestiferous particles.
    • pestiferous Noxious in any manner; mischievous; malignant; annoying.
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Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary
    • adj Pestiferous contagious: pestilent: annoying
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Etymology

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
L. pestiferus, pestifer,; pestis, pest + ferre, to bear: cf. F. pestifère,
Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary
Fr. peste—L. pestis, a contagious disease.

Usage

In literature:

He sneered; and the demon of discord entered our paradise, to poison with his pestiferous breath every opening joy.
"Posthumous Works" by Mary Wollstonecraft
He will destroy only the pestiferous microbes which ravage the vital peace of the soul.
"My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year" by John Henry Jowett
You bury your seamen upon the pestiferous shores; and, shocking to humanity!
"Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800" by William Frederick Poole
Brotteaux sank down on a bench in the pestiferous darkness and sat there, his head against the wall, speechless and motionless.
"The Gods are Athirst" by Anatole France
In the Bad Lands the thieves became daily more pestiferous.
"Roosevelt in the Bad Lands" by Hermann Hagedorn
Running a newspaper out here was, as Ma Wagor had predicted, a "pestiferous" job.
"Land of the Burnt Thigh" by Edith Eudora Kohl
Indeed, attractive as the country is in appearance, few would wish to visit that pestiferous region.
"Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs" by William H. G. Kingston
At their head, that pestiferous Col. Diego Moreno.
"Rita" by Laura E. Richards
An inferior spirit, often drugged or doctored for unwary sailors in the pestiferous dens of filthy Calcutta and other sea-ports in India.
"The Sailor's Word-Book" by William Henry Smyth
The westward part of the forest of M'Bonga projects a spur of the pestiferous rubber-bearing land into the isthmus of healthy woods.
"The Pools of Silence" by H. de Vere Stacpoole
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