Pestis

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Plague. uncommon, uncountable

    "page 198: [...] a name ordinarily given, then and for ages preceding, to the bubonic pestis. page 213: Another species of pestis in Sauvages Nosology is, from the accounts of various writers on the Lues bovilla, intimately connected with that [of distemper]."

  2. 2
    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 wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
pestpestilenceplagueplague

Example

More examples

"Although the threat of a bioterrorist attack using Yersinia pestis, the germ that causes plague, is unlikely, there are examples throughout history of Y. pestis being used as a bioweapon."

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.