pestiferous

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: pes=tif=er=ous

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.

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, zymotic

ROGET 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.