Plague-ridden
adj ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Experiencing an epidemic or epidemics of bubonic plague or another illness. (of a place or community)
"1930, Henry Handel Richardson (pseudonym of Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson), The Fortunes of Richard Mahony, Book I, Australia Felix, Proem, That was in the days of the first great stampede to the goldfields, when the embryo seaports were as empty as though they were plague-ridden, and every man who had the use of his legs was on the wide bush-track, bound for the north."
- 2 During which there is an epidemic or epidemics of bubonic plague or another illness. (of a time)
"The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988) chronicles gay life through the liberated 1960s; if White lives long enough, he hopes to complete the series with novels about the frenzied bathhouse ’70s and the plague-ridden ’80s."
- 3 Infected with or suffering from bubonic plague or another epidemic illness. (of a person, animal, body or object)
"There was a saintly minorite, one Fra Cristofero, who came to tend the plague-ridden, and who himself was miraculously preserved from the contagion."
Example
More examples"1930, Henry Handel Richardson (pseudonym of Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson), The Fortunes of Richard Mahony, Book I, Australia Felix, Proem, That was in the days of the first great stampede to the goldfields, when the embryo seaports were as empty as though they were plague-ridden, and every man who had the use of his legs was on the wide bush-track, bound for the north."
Etymology
From plague + ridden.
More for "plague-ridden"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.