plague Hear it!

plague Definition

plague (plāg)

noun

  1. anything that afflicts or troubles; calamity; scourge
  2. any contagious epidemic disease that is deadly; esp., bubonic plague
  3. Informal a nuisance; annoyance
  4. Bible any of various calamities sent down as divine punishment: Ex. 9:14, Num. 16:46

Etymology: ME plage < MFr < L plaga, a blow, misfortune, in LL(Ec), plague < Gr plēgē, plaga < IE *plaga, a blow < base *plag-, to strike > flaw

transitive verb plagued, plagu′·ing

  1. to afflict with a plague
  2. to vex; harass; trouble; torment

plague Related Forms
plagu′er noun
plague Synonyms

plague

n.

epidemic, Black Death, influenza; see disease.

plague Synonyms

plague

v.

disturb, trouble, irk, torment; see bother 2. See syn. study at bother.

plague Usage Examples

Object

  • mankind: She then opened the box from which all the ills that plague mankind were released.
  • epidemic: Moreover, as we know, the plague epidemics of early modern London did not hit all areas of the capital with equal force.
  • victim: The last people to die in Mary King's Close had been plague victims.

Subject

  • nightmare: She then becomes plagued by nightmares about a macabre, amorphous being stalking her.

Converse of subject

  • ravage: Dating back 200 years to when the island was ravaged by plague ( there are alternative theories ).

Adjective modifier

  • bubonic: The bubonic plague was brought to London by rats on board trading ships.
  • pneumonic: People who got the bubonic strain of the disease often took longer to die than those people who got the pneumonic plague.
  • deadly: Child of God, fear carnal presumption like you would fear the most deadly plague.
  • terrible: Meanwhile the Judges of PSI Division have foreseen that the Big Meg will be blighted by a terrible plague.
  • devastating: Its deliberate release in 2002 leads to the most devastating global plague ever known.
  • mysterious: NOVACON banquet attendees were stricken by a mysterious plague: 15 or so people report feeling ill afterward.

Modifies a noun

  • epidemic: In particular, a long essay on the impact of the 1665 plague epidemic in London nears completion.
  • pit: I'm as disorganized as a plague pit at the moment.
  • outbreak: The year 1998 signaled the third bubonic plague outbreak in five years, a trend which is likely to continue.

Noun used with modifier

  • locust: DEC Niger crisis appeal The combination of drought and a locust plague has left 2.5m people in Niger struggling to survive acute food shortages.

Preposition: of

  • locust: And how do you fight a plague of locusts?
  • leprosy: In Leviticus 13: 2, ' like the plague of leprosy ' .
  • frog: But here the experience is almost like a nightmare, as Heaney witnesses a plague of frogs like something from the Old Testament.
  • rat: Yesterday a strange man in shocking colors rid Hamelin of the plague of rats.

Preposition: by

  • nightmare: She then becomes plagued by nightmares about a macabre, amorphous being stalking her.
plague Quotes

And it is a wonder what will be the fashion after the plagueisdoneastoperiwigs, fornobody will daretobuy any haire for fear of the infectionöthat it had been cut off the heads of people dead of the plague.

—Pepys, Samuel

Ay, a plague on't, My conscience fools my wit!

—Jonson, Ben

That it is at least as difficult to staya moral infection as a physical one; that such a disease will spread with the malignityand rapidity of the Plague; that the contagion, when it has once made head, will spare no pursuit or condition, but will lay hold on people in the soundest health, and become developed inthe most unlikely constitutions; is a fact as firmlyestablished by experience as that we human creatures breathe an atmosphere.

—Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam

In the arts of life man invents nothing; but in the arts of death he outdoes Nature herself, and produces by chemistry and machinery all the slaughter of plague, pestilence and famine.

—Shaw, George Bernard

One was never married, and that's his hell; another is, and that's his plague.

—Burton, Robert pseudonym DemocritusJunior

From winter, plague and pestilence, good lord, deliver us!

—Nashe,Thomas