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pervade
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
pervade
verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
atmosphere
▪ Investigation failed to produce any reason why such an evil atmosphere should pervade that area.
▪ A sort of frat party / stag club atmosphere pervades Tallahassee.
▪ An altogether lighter atmosphere pervaded the dairy.
▪ But the Stampede atmosphere pervades the city.
▪ Ted resumed the operation of the cabin and tried to shake off the depressing atmosphere that now pervaded the small room.
▪ The playing is superlative, but the real triumph is the warm and expansive atmosphere which pervades the album.
smell
▪ Hot and steamy, the smell of moist decay pervades the air.
▪ And it's not just the dizzying development and the smell of money that pervades the downtown area.
▪ No footmarks disturbed the dust, cobwebs hung like festoons and a strange musty smell pervaded the atmosphere.
▪ Here and there, a smell of stale cabbage pervaded the air.
▪ There was no one in the room and no oil lamp, but a strange smell pervaded the air.
▪ Hugh Dodds, then Consul in Harar, reported that the smell of corpses pervaded the town for days.
▪ A strange, sour smell pervaded the air.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ A culture of violence pervades the local police department.
▪ the smell of rain pervading the air
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Above all, I remember the overwhelming sense of defeatism and moral chaos that pervaded public discourse.
▪ Hard feelings pervade, especially between Paulette and her father.
▪ It is a word that pervades the world that deals with children who, having problems, are taken to be problems.
▪ Many sleepers are disturbed by light that pervades their eyelids when they have their eyes closed.
▪ Tea trays pervade the corridors, going everywhere.
▪ The power of their positive thinking is infectious and pervades our daily working life.
▪ There is a contradiction which has pervaded responses to the National Curriculum in special education.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Pervade

Pervade \Per*vade"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Pervaded; p. pr. & vb. n. Pervading.] [L. pervadere, pervasum; per + vadere to go, to walk. See Per-, and Wade.]

  1. To pass or flow through, as an aperture, pore, or interstice; to permeate.

    That labyrinth is easily pervaded.
    --Blackstone.

  2. To pass or spread through the whole extent of; to be diffused throughout.

    A spirit of cabal, intrigue, and proselytism pervaded all their thoughts, words, and actions.
    --Burke.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
pervade

1650s, from Latin pervadere "spread or go through," from per- "through" + vadere "to go" (see vamoose). Related: Pervaded; pervading.

Wiktionary
pervade

vb. To be in every part of; to spread through

WordNet
pervade

v. spread or diffuse through; "An atmosphere of distrust has permeated this administration"; "music penetrated the entire building" [syn: permeate, penetrate, interpenetrate, diffuse, imbue]

Usage examples of "pervade".

Sitting alone in the darkness amplified the torpor that had pervaded me, and though I sensed certain unsettling dissonances surrounding what had just taken place, I was not sufficiently alert to consider them as other than aggravations.

He had later claimed that it was an unintentional error and he had been given the benefit of the doubt, since it was not impossible that after a day of harassing visits he should have mistaken the ampoule, all the more so considering the semi-darkness pervading the sick room.

As I went through my antemeridian routine, I discovered that I harbored the same mixed mood that had pervaded my weekend, and I can only describe it as being precariously happy.

Our textbooks do not teach against the archetype of the savage Indian that pervades popular culture.

CHAPTER I DYING WORDS A SPECTRAL gloom seemed to pervade the room where Josiah Bartram lay.

In consequence of their endlessly varied, constantly recurring, intensely earnest speculations and musings over this contrast of finite restlessness and pain with infinite peace and blessedness, a contrast which constitutes the preaching of their priests, saturates their sacred books, fills their thoughts, and broods over all their life, the Orientals are pervaded with a profound horror of individual existence, and with a profound desire for absorption into the Infinite Being.

Any man who heartily believed what Christ said that he was Divinely authorized to declare, and did declare, the pervading goodness of the Father and the immortal blessedness of the souls of his children, by the very terms was delivered from the bondage of fear and commenced the consciousness of eternal life.

The established authority of the emperors pervaded without an effort the wide extent of their dominions, and was exercised with the same facility on the banks of the Thames, or of the Nile, as on those of the Tiber.

A feeling of irritation pervaded the public mind in Italy, and the army had not proceeded three marches beyond Mantua when an insurrection broke out in Milan.

This motion was plausible, and this time the obstructor spoke plausibly, concealing the temper which really pervaded his opposition.

PlasHein Square, confusion and fear pervading him, darkness and noise all around, pressing in, choking, crushing.

Within minutes he was on horseback, trotting through the sunlit streets as quickly as the busy citizens would allow, his control still icy and pervading both his horse and Kerna, riding behind him.

Cassraw that he barely noticed the agitation that was pervading the Witness House when he reached it.

And then there was no summit, no Nertha, and no Whistler, save for his frantic trilling call pervading everything.

It had helped him even further to note the almost sprightly air that was pervading the old man.