Epidemic

• POS: Adjective, Noun
• HYPHEN: ep=i=dem=ic

CIDE DICTIONARY

Epidemic, a. [L. epidemus, Gr. , , among the people, epidemic; in + people: cf. F. épidémique. Cf. Demagogue.].

•  Common to, or affecting at the same time, a large number in a community; -- applied to a disease which, spreading widely, attacks many persons at the same time; as, an epidemic disease; an epidemic catarrh, fever, etc. See Endemic.  [1913 Webster]
•  Spreading widely, or generally prevailing; affecting great numbers, as an epidemic does; as, epidemic rage; an epidemic evil.  [1913 Webster]

  "It was the epidemical sin of the nation."  [1913 Webster]

Epidemic, n. [Cf. Epidemy.].

•  An epidemic disease.  [1913 Webster]
•  Anything which takes possession of the minds of people as an epidemic does of their bodies; as, an epidemic of terror.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

Epidemic, n. & adj.
--n.
1 a widespread occurrence of a disease in a community at a particular time.
2 such a disease.
3 (foll. by of) a wide prevalence of something usu. undesirable.
--adj. in the nature of an epidemic (cf. ENDEMIC).

Derivative

epidemically adv.

Etymology

F {eacute}pid{eacute}mique f. {eacute}pid{eacute}mie f. LL epidemia f. Gk epidemia prevalence of disease f. epidemios (adj.) (as EPI-, demos the people)

THESAURUS

Epidemic

abounding, abundant, affluent, all-sufficing, ambulatory plague, ample, aplenty, average, besetting, black death, black plague, bottomless, bounteous, bountiful, bubonic plague, catching, cellulocutaneous plague, common, communicable, compact, contagious, copious, current, defervescing plague, diffuse, dominant, effuse, endemic, epidemial, epigrammatic, epiphytotic, epizootic, exhaustless, extravagant, exuberant, fat, fertile, flush, full, galore, general, generous, glandular plague, growth, hemorrhagic plague, in plenty, in quantity, inexhaustible, infectious, infective, inoculable, larval plague, lavish, liberal, luxuriant, many, maximal, meaty, much, murrain, normal, numerous, opulent, ordinary, outbreak, overflowing, pandemia, pandemic, pest, pesthole, pestiferous, pestilence, pestilential, plague, plague spot, plenitudinous, plenteous, plentiful, plenty, pneumonic plague, popular, predominant, predominating, premonitory plague, prevailing, prevalent, prodigal, productive, profuse, profusive, rampant, rash, regnant, reigning, replete, rich, rife, riotous, routine, ruling, running, running over, scourge, septicemic plague, siderating plague, sporadic, spread, spreading, standard, stereotyped, superabundant, taking, teeming, tuberculosis, universal, upsurge, usual, wealthy, well-found, well-furnished, well-provided, well-stocked, white plague, wholesale, wide-ranging, widespread, zymotic

ROGET THESAURUS

Epidemic

Disease

N disease, illness, sickness, ailing, all the ills that flesh is heir to, morbidity, morbosity, infirmity, ailment, indisposition, complaint, disorder, malady, distemper, distemperature, visitation, attack, seizure, stroke, fit, delicacy, loss of health, invalidation, cachexy, cachexia, atrophy, marasmus, indigestion, dyspepsia, decay, decline, consumption, palsy, paralysis, prostration, taint, pollution, infection, sepsis, septicity, infestation, epidemic, pandemic, endemic, epizootic, murrain, plague, pestilence, pox, sore, ulcer, abscess, fester, boil, pimple, wen, carbuncle, gathering, imposthume, peccant humor, issue, rot, canker, cold sore, fever sore, cancer, carcinoma, leukemia, neoplastic disease, malignancy, tumor, caries, mortification, corruption, gangrene, sphacelus, sphacelation, leprosy, eruption, rash, breaking out, fever, temperature, calenture, inflammation, ague, angina pectoris, appendicitis, Asiatic cholera, spasmodic cholera, biliary calculus, kidney stone, black death, bubonic plague, pneumonic plague, blennorrhagia, blennorrhoea, blood poisoning, bloodstroke, bloody flux, brash, breakbone fever, dengue fever, malarial fever, Q-fever, heart attack, cardiac arrest, cardiomyopathy, hardening of the arteries, arteriosclerosis, atherosclerosis, bronchocele, canker rash, cardialgia, carditis, endocarditis, cholera, asphyxia, chlorosis, chorea, cynanche, dartre, enanthem, enanthema, erysipelas, exanthem, exanthema, gallstone, goiter, gonorrhea, green sickness, grip, grippe, influenza, flu, hay fever, heartburn, heaves, rupture, hernia, hemorrhoids, piles, herpes, itch, king's evil, lockjaw, measles, mumps, polio, necrosis, pertussis, phthisis, pneumonia, psora, pyaemia, pyrosis, quinsy, rachitis, ringworm, rubeola, St. Vitus's dance, scabies, scarlatina, scarlet fever, scrofula, seasickness, struma, syntexis, tetanus, tetter, tonsillitis, tonsilitis, tracheocele, trachoma, trismus, varicella, varicosis, variola, water qualm, whooping cough, yellow fever, yellow jack, fatal disease, dangerous illness, galloping consumption, churchyard cough, general breaking up, break up of the system, idiocy insanity, martyr to disease, cripple, the halt the lame and the blind, valetudinary, valetudinarian, invalid, patient, case, sickroom, sick- chamber, pathology, etiology, nosology, anthrax, bighead, blackleg, blackquarter, cattle plague, glanders, mange, scrapie, milk sickness, heartworm, feline leukemia, roundworms, quarter-evil, quarter-ill, rinderpest, virus, bacterium, bacteria, DNA virus, RNA virus, rhinovirus, rhabdovirus, picornavirus, herpesvirus, cytomegalovirus, CMV, human immunodefficiency virus, HIV, diseased, ailing, ill, ill of, taken ill, seized with, indisposed, unwell, sick, squeamish, poorly, seedy, affected with illness, afflicted with illness, laid up, confined, bedridden, invalided, in hospital, on the sick list, out of health, out of sorts, under the weather, valetudinary, unsound, unhealthy, sickly, morbid, morbose, healthless, infirm, chlorotic, unbraced, drooping, flagging, lame, crippled, halting, morbid, tainted, vitiated, peccant, contaminated, poisoned, tabid, mangy, leprous, cankered, rotten, rotten to the core, rotten at the core, withered, palsied, paralytic, dyspeptic, luetic, pneumonic, pulmonic, phthisic, rachitic, syntectic, syntectical, tabetic, varicose, touched in the wind, broken-winded, spavined, gasping, hors de combat, weakly, weakened, decrepit, decayed, incurable, in declining health, cranky, in a bad way, in danger, prostrate, moribund, morbific epidemic, endemic, zymotic.

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.

Dispersion

N nonassemblage, dispersion, dispersion, disjunction, divergence, aspersion, scattering, dissemination, diffusion, dissipation, distribution, apportionment, spread, respersion, circumfusion, interspersion, spargefaction, affusion, waifs and estrays, flotsam and jetsam, disjecta membra waveson, unassembled &c (assemble), dispersed, sparse, dispread, broadcast, sporadic, widespread, epidemic, adrift, stray, disheveled, streaming, sparsim, here and there, passim.

Generality

N generality, generalization, universality, catholicity, catholicism, miscellany, miscellaneousness, dragnet, common run, worldwideness, everyone, everybody, all hands, all the world and his wife, anybody, N or M, all sorts, prevalence, run, general, generic, collective, broad, comprehensive, sweeping, encyclopedical, widespread, universal, catholic, catholical, common, worldwide, ecumenical, oecumenical, transcendental, prevalent, prevailing, rife, epidemic, besetting, all over, covered with, Pan-American, Anglican, Pan-Hellenic, Pan-Germanic, slavic, panharmonic, every, all, unspecified, impersonal, customary, whatever, whatsoever, to a man, one and all, generally, always, for better for worse, in general, generally speaking, speaking generally, for the most part, in the long run.