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pestiferous
WORDNET DICTIONARY
Adjective pestiferous has 4 senses
- pestiferous(s = adj.all) dirty - contaminated with infecting organisms; "dirty wounds"; "obliged to go into infected rooms"
- pestiferous(s = adj.all) pestilent, pestilential, plaguey - likely to spread and cause an epidemic disease; "a pestilential malignancy in the air"; "plaguey fevers"
- pestiferous(s = adj.all) corruptive, perversive - tending to corrupt or pervert; Array
- pestiferous(s = adj.all) annoying, bothersome, galling, irritating, nettlesome, pesky, pestering, plaguey, plaguy, teasing, vexatious, vexing - 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"
CIDE DICTIONARY
pestiferous, a. [L. pestiferus, pestifer; pestis pest + ferre to bear: cf. F. pestifère.].
- Pest-bearing; pestilential; noxious to health; malignant; infectious; contagious; as, pestiferous bodies. [1913 Webster]
- Noxious to peace, to morals, or to society; vicious; hurtful; destructive; as, a pestiferous demagogue. [1913 Webster]"Pestiferous reports of men very nobly held." [1913 Webster]
OXFORD DICTIONARY
pestiferous, adj.
1 noxious; pestilent.
2 harmful; pernicious; bearing moral contagion.
1 noxious; pestilent.
2 harmful; pernicious; bearing moral contagion.
Etymology
L pestifer, -ferus (as PEST)
THESAURUS
pestiferous
aggravating, annoying, bad, bad for, baneful, bothering, bothersome, catching, communicable, contagious, contaminated, deadly, destructive, disturbing, endemic, envenomed, epidemial, epidemic, epiphytotic, epizootic, exasperating, foul, galling, harassing, harmful, importunate, importune, infectious, infective, injurious, inoculable, insalubrious, insanitary, irking, irksome, irritating, malign, malignant, mephitic, miasmal, miasmatic, miasmic, morbific, noisome, noxious, pandemic, pathogenic, peccant, pesky, pestering, pestilent, pestilential, plaguesome, plaguey, plaguing, poisonous, polluted, provoking, septic, sporadic, spreading, tainted, taking, teasing, tiresome, tormenting, toxic, toxicant, toxiferous, troublesome, troubling, unhealthful, unhealthy, unhygienic, unsanitary, unwholesome, venenate, veneniferous, venenous, venomous, vexatious, vexing, virulent, wearisome, worrisome, worrying, zymoticROGET THESAURUS
pestiferous
Insalubrity
N insalubrity, unhealthiness, nonnaturals, plague spot, malaria, death in the pot, contagion, toxicity, insalubrious, unhealthy, unwholesome, noxious, noisome, morbific, morbiferous, mephitic, septic, azotic, deleterious, pestilent, pestiferous, pestilential, virulent, venomous, envenomed, poisonous, toxic, toxiferous, teratogenic, narcotic, contagious, infectious, catching, taking, epidemic, zymotic, epizootic, innutritious, indigestible, ungenial, uncongenial, deadly.
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