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What is "pervasive"

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
pervasive
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
more
▪ Cultural and social factors are more pervasive when parents like to see a fat child.
▪ The opportunities for classification afforded by the National Curriculum are more pervasive and more deeply institutionalised than any previous system.
▪ An even more pervasive problem is that of consistency of performance across time.
▪ By focusing on discrete activities liability rules are capable of creating a potentially more pervasive field of deterrence.
▪ In fact, international law is both more pervasive and more effectual than we generally realise.
▪ The temporal properties of the environment are more pervasive and more subtle than any series of reminders.
▪ Strange how childhood impressions linger, often remaining more pervasive than the experiences of later life.
▪ Stronger than the smells of Lefortovo or Vladimir, more pervasive than the smells of the Lubyanka interrogation cells or the train.
most
▪ The commodification of human emotions and relations is one of the most pervasive influences of modern advertising.
▪ But the most pervasive and important mechanism is based on chemical substances called pheromones.
▪ The distinction between night and day is one of the most pervasive rhythms that we experience.
so
▪ But none are so pervasive, nor so completely satisfactory, that they rule out the need for other lines of explanation.
▪ Bias is so pervasive that hardly a sentence in normal speech lacks it, and many utterances contain little else.
▪ First, it is not so pervasive.
▪ At times the general dampness became so pervasive that you failed to notice.
▪ They have been so pervasive and so self-evident that there has been little point in articulating them.
■ NOUN
influence
▪ We can only speculate on whether this is another example of the pervasive influence of psychoanalytic thinking in our culture.
▪ The commodification of human emotions and relations is one of the most pervasive influences of modern advertising.
▪ Now the pervasive influence of irrational forces, incongruous in a profession which prizes objective judgment, is to undergo scientific scrutiny.
▪ They are certainly a less pervasive influence than are the boardroom knights who sign over company funds to the Conservatives.
▪ In recent months opposition parties, hostile to his pervasive influence, had called for his resignation.
▪ This was partly due to the unattractiveness of education classes and partly to the pervasive influence of the public-school obsession with games.
sense
▪ Apart from these tender moments, however, I struggled to quell a pervasive sense of emptiness inside.
▪ Yet a pervasive sense of shame hung over our profession.
▪ The perception was frightening, but there was a sensation of healing in his chest and a pervasive sense of well-being.
▪ My earliest memories include a pervasive sense of exile.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Alcohol is still a pervasive problem with high - school students.
▪ She argues that sexual discrimination remains a pervasive element in corporate culture.
▪ Violence and crime are pervasive features of city life.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Again, we see the surprisingly pervasive role that presumptions of contextual appropriateness play in successful communication.
▪ Apart from these tender moments, however, I struggled to quell a pervasive sense of emptiness inside.
▪ How effective is this pervasive imagery in achieving female conformity?
▪ In this dynamic perspective, pervasive and local features of style are equally parts of the pattern.
▪ Mr Izmailov cited pervasive pollution, bad weather, rampant poaching and over-fishing as the reasons for the declining catch.
▪ The bad was the pervasive and inevitable corruption of morals and manners that accompanied such a compulsion for the luxurious.
▪ The high sun had burned off the pervasive mist and cleared heaven and earth.
▪ Though enunciation is given to such feelings on occasion, it is by no means pervasive.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Pervasive

Pervasive \Per*va"sive\, a. Tending to pervade, or having power to spread throughout; of a pervading quality. ``Civilization pervasive and general.''
--M. Arnold.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
pervasive

1750, from Latin pervas-, past participle stem of pervadere (see pervade) + -ive.

Wiktionary
pervasive

a. manifested throughout; pervading, permeating, penetrating or affecting everything.

Related phrases:
WordNet
pervasive

  1. adj. spread throughout; "a pervasive anxiety overshadows the triumphs of individuals" [syn: pervading]

  2. spreading throughout; "armed with permeative irony...he punctures affectations"; "the pervasive odor of garlic"; "an error is pervasive if it is material to more than one conclusion" [syn: permeant, permeating, permeative]

Wikipedia
Pervasive

Pervasive may refer to:

  • Pervasive Computing, human computer interaction paradigm
  • Pervasive Informatics, study of how information affects human interactions
  • Pervasive Software, software company in the United States
  • Pervasive Games, games that blend with the physical world
Related phrases:

Usage examples of "pervasive".

Galloping over the few patches that the starblaze showed comparatively free of traps, walking again, forcing the reluctant beasts through thick patches of bramble, on and on, until the whole world seemed to shake and the noise was a thousand hammers beating on them, a noise so pervasive it was around them as solid as the air slamming against them.

My dislike of Mansfield was so pervasive an emotion that I had even used it on occasion to obliterate hunger.

Besides being over warm, the room was also redolent of not altogether pleasant scents, including the sharp mustardy smell of the reeking poultice, and, beneath it, the duller but equally pervasive odor of a feverish male body.

Chekhov, it is everywhere problematic, its very pervasiveness the symptom of a pervasive cultural problem.

Terrible heat and a pervasive moldy smell that kept us all sniffling in spite of the antiallergenic drugs that our modified endocrine systems fed us.

The walls, the paneling, the pervasive heaviness of nearly new fixtures, the colossal firedogs, the walk-in fireplaces of bright new stone referred back through the centuries to a time of lonely castles in mute forests.

These are only the most pervasive of many Heideggerian allusions in the novel.

His hindbrain gibbered with warning at that invidious, pervasive whiff of smoke and the stench of brimstone.

More dust rose into the air, but they had all covered their mouths by now and were holding their eyes very nearly closed against the pervasive dust.

It is even more pervasive than the habit of noninvolvement, the habit of walking away when the action starts.

People who are characterised by these qualities may at times use others to gratify their own needs, but the tendency occurs in the broader context of sensitive interpersonal relatedness rather than as a pervasive style of dealing with other people.

But the slicks are now so pervasive that, like the Moses virus, they might never be completely eradicated, only contained.

She shook away the pervasive sense of deja vu that lingered after each ansible trance.

Credential doctrines disaccorded with a pervasive staleness and spiritual claustrophobia.

The silence of the Slags closed about them, deep and pervasive, an intrusive and brooding companion.