different between pestilential vs pest

English

Adjective

pestilential (comparative more pestilential, superlative most pestilential)

1. Of or relating to pestilence or plague.
   1. (of people, animals, places or substances) Producing, spreading, promoting or infected with pestilence; causing infection.

      Synonym: pestiferous

      • 1675, John Dryden, The Mistaken Husband, London: J. Magnes and R. Bentley, Act V, p. 63,^[1]

        What do you fear? Why do you shun me thus. […] I am not Pestilential, nor Leaprous.

      • 1728, James Thomson, Spring, London: A. Millar and G. Strahan, p. 20,^[2]

        […] the Winter keen

        Pour’d out his Waste of Snows, and Summer shot

        His pestilential Heats:

      • 1789, Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, London: for the author, Volume 1, Chapter 2, pp. 78-79,^[3]

        The stench of the hold while we were on the coast was so intolerably loathsome, that it was dangerous to remain there for any time, and some of us had been permitted to stay on the deck for the fresh air; but now that the whole ship’s cargo were confined together, it became absolutely pestilential.

      • 1941, J. Chapman Miske, “The Thing in the Moonlight” in H. P. Lovecraft, The Tomb and Other Tales, New York: Ballantine, 1970, p. 187,^[4]

        Casting my eyes about, I beheld no living object; but was sensible of a very peculiar stirring far below me, amongst the whispering rushes of the pestilential swamp I had lately quitted.

   2. (of illnesses) Spreading in the manner of pestilence.
      • 1624, John Donne, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, London: Thomas Jones, “5. Meditation,” p. 95,^[5]

        A long sicknesse will weary friends at last; but a pestilentiall sicknes auerts them from the beginning.

      • 1783, Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell, Volume 5, Chapter 31, p. 292,^[6]

        […] the miseries of famine were succeeded and aggravated by the contagion of a pestilential disease.

   3. (of symptoms) Caused by pestilence.
      • 1752, George Berkeley, “An Essay towards Preventing the Ruin of Great-Britain” in A Miscellany, Containing Several Tracts on Various Subjects, London: J. and R. Tonson and S. Draper, p. 40,^[7]

        The Scab, the Stench, and the Burning are terrible pestilential Symptoms,

   4. (of a period of time) During which pestilence spreads.
      • 1651, John Milton, The Life and Reigne of King Charls, London: W. Reybold, p. 9,^[8]

        Now this pestilentiall Summer being well spent, upon the approach of the Winter, and decrease of the Sicknesse, the King […] drawes nearer to the City of London,

      • 1665, John Quarles, The Citizens Flight with Their Re-call, London, p. 4,^[9]

        They must expect more Pestilential times,

        That lives in th’ Equinoctial of their Crimes;

2. (figuratively) Having a harmful moral effect (especially one that is believed to spread in the manner of pestilence).

   Synonym: pernicious

   • 1687, John Dryden, The Hind and the Panther, London: Jacob Tonson, 2nd ed., Part 1, p. 14,^[10]

     But as the Poisons of the deadliest kind

     Are to their own unhappy Coasts confin’d,

     […]

     So Presby’try and Pestilential Zeal

     Can only flourish in a Common-weal.

   • 1971, George Steiner, In Bluebeard’s Castle: Some Notes toward the Redefinition of Culture, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, Part 2, p. 47,^[11]

     By proclaiming individuals or entire societies to be damned, by treating their convictions as pestilential heresies, church and state had deliberately loosed fanaticism and savagery on often helpless men.

3. (figuratively) Causing irritation or annoyance.

   Synonyms: annoying, irritating, pestiferous, pestilent, troublesome, vexatious

   • 1885, W. S. Gilbert, The Mikado, London: Chappell, Act I, p. 9,^[12]

     There’s the pestilential nuisances who write for autographs […] They’d none of ’em be missed!

   • 1899, Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 165, March 1899, Chapter 2, p. 480,^[13]

     […] a species of wandering trader—a pestilential fellow, snapping ivory from the natives.

   • 1966, Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Penguin Random House 2018, Book 1, Chapter 2,^[14]

     “You are right that Authority must go. It is ridiculous—pestilential, not to be borne—that we should be ruled by an irresponsible dictator in all our essential economy!”

   • 2003, Lionel Shriver, We Need to Talk about Kevin, London: Serpent’s Tail, 2006, p. 461,^[15]

     these ostensibly pestilential visits from Mumsey

Derived terms

• antipestilential
• pestilentially

Old French

Adjective

pestilential m (oblique and nominative feminine singular pestilentiale)

1. pestilent; pestilential

English

Etymology

From Middle French peste (whence French peste), ultimately from Latin pestis.

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /p?st/
• Rhymes: -?st

Noun

pest (plural pests)

1. (originally) A plague, pestilence, epidemic
2. Any destructive insect or caterpillar that attacks crops or livestock; an agricultural pest.
3. An annoying person, a nuisance.
4. An animal regarded as a nuisance, destructive, or a parasite, vermin.
5. An invasive weed.

Synonyms

• (creature): bug

Related terms

• garden pest
• pester
• pesting
• pesthole
• pesthouse
• pesticidal, pesticide
• pestiferous
• pestilence, pestilent, pestilential

Translations

Anagrams

• EPTs, ESTP, PETs, STEP, Sept, Sept., TPEs, Teps, pets, sept, sept-, spet, step, step-

Danish

Etymology

From French peste, from Latin pestis (“disease, plague, pest, destruction”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p?st/, [p??sd?]

Noun

pest c (uncountable, singular definite pesten)

1. (medicine) plague
2. (figuratively) pestilence

Dutch

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -?st

Noun

pest f (uncountable)

1. A plague, pest, pestilence.
2. A specific bovine plague
3. An obnoxious person

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Indonesian: pes

Verb

pest

1. first-, second- and third-person singular present indicative of pesten
2. imperative of pesten

References

• M. J. Koenen & J. Endepols, Verklarend Handwoordenboek der Nederlandse Taal (tevens Vreemde-woordentolk), Groningen, Wolters-Noordhoff, 1969 (26th edition) [Dutch dictionary in Dutch]

Northern Kurdish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p?st/

Noun

pest f (Arabic spelling ?????)

1. pressure, oppression

References

• Chyet, Michael L. (2003) , “pest”, in Kurdish–English Dictionary, with selected etymologies by Martin Schwartz, New Haven and London: Yale University Press

Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology

From Latin pestis

Noun

pest f or m (definite singular pesta or pesten, indefinite plural pester, definite plural pestene)

1. a plague

   sky (noe/noen) som pesten - avoid (something/someone) like the plague

   velge mellom pest og kolera - choose the lesser of two evils

Derived terms

• byllepest
• forpeste
• pestepidemi

References

• “pest” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology

From Latin pestis

Noun

pest m (definite singular pesten, indefinite plural pestar, definite plural pestane)
pest f (definite singular pesta, indefinite plural pester, definite plural pestene)

1. a plague

   sky (noko/nokon) som pesten - avoid (something/someone) like the plague

   velje mellom pest og kolera - choose the lesser of two evils

Derived terms

• byllepest
• forpeste
• pestepidemi

References

• “pest” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Serbo-Croatian

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *p?st?

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pê?st/

Noun

p?st f (Cyrillic spelling ?????)

1. (regional, literary) fist

Declension

Slovene

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *p?st?. Cognate with Serbo-Croatian ????, pest, Slovak päs?, Russian ????? (pjast?, “middle part of the hand”) and ????????? (zapjást?je), dialectal Bulgarian (Western dialects) ??????? (pestnik), ?????? (pesnik), ???????? (pestnica). Compare Ancient Greek ????? (pugm?), English fist, German Faust.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pé?st/

Noun

p??st f

1. (anatomy) fist

Inflection

Derived terms

• pésten

Swedish

Etymology

Ultimately from Latin pestis.

Noun

pest c

1. A plague
2. A pest; something deeply annoying

Derived terms

• blodpest
• böldpest
• lungpest
• pest och pina
• välja mellan pest och kolera