Find the word definition

Crossword clues for plague

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
plague
I.noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
avoid...like the plague (=try hard to avoid him)
▪ Why did you speak to him? You usually avoid him like the plague.
bubonic plague
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
bubonic
▪ Monservate was demolished after an outbreak of bubonic plague, an unusual fate for a station.
▪ Global incidences of cholera, tuberculosis, diphtheria and bubonic plague have all increased significantly in the last five years.
▪ Later on, my nursing studies taught me it had been a form of bubonic plague.
▪ You know, the ones about the bubonic plague and all that.
▪ Thus, there seems little doubt that it was bubonic plague which struck Chesterfield in 1586-87.
▪ Elsewhere, typhus carried off many who had been weakened by starvation; in Chesterfield the pestilence was almost certainly bubonic plague.
▪ The writer's po-faced style occasionally irritates: do people really need reminding that cases of bubonic plague should be treated immediately?
▪ Hisey said rodents can carry bubonic plague and other diseases and attract fleas.
■ VERB
avoid
▪ As you know, the best commercial travel pictures avoid people like the plague.
▪ I guess I have avoided it like the plague, without much wanting to admit my cowardice.
▪ Self-pity is a totally contemptible vice and I have throughout many vicissitudes and much unmerited disappointment avoided it as a plague.
▪ Trees evenly spaced, at regulation height, and all plumb vertical, must be avoided like the plague.
▪ Unless they are quite brilliant, jokes are best avoided in essays. Avoid cliches like the plague! 6.
▪ The Profitboss avoids committees like the plague.
▪ The place has given off a bad odour for years and I have always avoided it like the plague.
▪ But if you just want to use your computer for word-processing or web-surfing, avoid it like the plague.
die
▪ Sixty-two villagers died of the plague in the seventeenth century.
▪ At about the same time, his two legitimate sons died of the plague.
▪ He died in 1167 of plague after the defeat of the army near Tusculum.
▪ Women died in labor, men died in battle, millions died in plagues.
▪ Compliance sometimes led to delay in burial, though there was a waiver for anyone dying of the plague.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ AIDS has been called a sexual plague.
▪ an outbreak of plague
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ His speech carried a surprising pledge to end by March a nationwide plague of salary arrears.
▪ I was not comfortable talking to kids, particularly boys, and I avoided the older ones like the plague.
▪ Meanwhile she was not to set foot outside the door, as a plague of field-mice infested the estate.
▪ The plague spreads: more atoms split, and then yet more.
▪ There are now three people dead - it's like a plague that's struck the whole Lossie complex.
▪ Though relatively healthy animals, state health officials warn that they are notoriously susceptible to bubonic plague.
▪ Yet the final image of him working with plague victims transforms him into a heroic character.
II.verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
still
▪ He had, nevertheless, put his finger on a problem that still plagues museums.
■ NOUN
life
▪ You've been plaguing the life out of me and everybody else for as long as I've worked here.
problem
▪ Perhaps this is a reflection of the problems that have plagued nuclear fission.
▪ Perhaps the most noticeable earnings problem has plagued the semiconductor group, the hottest sector through the first three quarters of 1995.
▪ The visitors were again struck by injury; a problem which has plagued them all season.
▪ Yet the same problems which plagued the civil courts prevailed.
▪ Bugel wants to correct the problems that plagued his rushing defense and offense against the Chargers.
▪ He had, nevertheless, put his finger on a problem that still plagues museums.
▪ Only this season, his second in Tucson, has Davis avoided the myriad off-court problems that plagued his career since childhood.
■ VERB
continue
▪ But the injured continued to plague the system with their suits, and finally a bargain was struck.
▪ Yet the ageless question continued to plague us.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Elway has been plagued all season by back problems.
▪ Heavy rains continue to plague the state.
▪ Social problems plague these low-income communities.
▪ The area is plagued by soil erosion and flooding.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Fires continued to burn elsewhere in the West in states plagued by one of the worst droughts of the century.
▪ Frederick was plagued with one illness after another throughout his childhood, mainly suffering from asthma and other breathing problems.
▪ Louka is also plagued by the police who are very suspicious about his bogus marriage.
▪ Nevertheless the Republicans, plagued by continuing factional disputes over strategy, tactics and supply, proved unable to recapture lost territory.
▪ Perhaps the most noticeable earnings problem has plagued the semiconductor group, the hottest sector through the first three quarters of 1995.
▪ Price inflation plagued the distribution of imported goods and was aggravated by bottlenecks in ports like Khorramshahr and beyond.
▪ Some say these were sent by the Witch King to plague him.
▪ Wanda Kaczynski is plagued by guilt.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Plague

Plague \Plague\, n. [L. plaga a blow, stroke, plague; akin to Gr. ?, fr. ? to strike; cf. L. plangere to strike, beat. Cf. Plaint.]

  1. That which smites, wounds, or troubles; a blow; a calamity; any afflictive evil or torment; a great trail or vexation.
    --Shak.

    And men blasphemed God for the plague of hail.
    --Wyclif.

    The different plague of each calamity.
    --Shak.

  2. (Med.) An acute malignant contagious fever, that often prevails in Egypt, Syria, and Turkey, and has at times visited the large cities of Europe with frightful mortality; hence, any pestilence; as, the great London plague. ``A plague upon the people fell.''
    --Tennyson.

    Cattle plague. See Rinderpest.

    Plague mark, Plague spot, a spot or mark of the plague; hence, a token of something incurable.

Plague

Plague \Plague\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Plagued; p. pr. & vb. n. Plaguing.]

  1. To infest or afflict with disease, calamity, or natural evil of any kind.

    Thus were they plagued And worn with famine.
    --Milton.

  2. Fig.: To vex; to tease; to harass.

    She will plague the man that loves her most.
    --Spenser.

    Syn: To vex; torment; distress; afflict; harass; annoy; tease; tantalize; trouble; molest; embarrass; perplex.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
plague

late 14c., plage, "affliction, calamity, evil, scourge;" early 15c., "malignant disease," from Old French plage (14c.), from Late Latin plaga, used in Vulgate for "pestilence," from Latin plaga "stroke, wound," probably from root of plangere "to strike, lament (by beating the breast)," from or cognate with Greek (Doric) plaga "blow," from PIE *plak- (2) "to strike, to hit" (cognates: Greek plazein "to drive away," plessein "to beat, strike;" Old English flocan "to strike, beat;" Gothic flokan "to bewail;" German fluchen, Old Frisian floka "to curse").\n

\nThe Latin word also is the source of Old Irish plag (genitive plaige) "plague, pestilence," German Plage, Dutch plaage. Meaning "epidemic that causes many deaths" is from 1540s; specifically in reference to bubonic plague from c.1600. Modern spelling follows French, which had plague from 15c. Weakened sense of "anything annoying" is from c.1600.

plague

late 15c., from Middle Dutch plaghen, from plaghe (n.) "plague" (see plague (n.)). Sense of "bother, annoy" it is first recorded 1590s. Related: Plagued; plaguing.

Wiktionary
plague

n. 1 (context often used with ''the'', sometimes capitalized: ''the '''Plague''''' English) The bubonic plague, the pestilent disease caused by the virulent bacterium ''Yersinia pestis''. 2 (context pathology English) An epidemic or pandemic caused by any pestilence, but specifically by the above disease. 3 A widespread affliction, calamity or destructive influx, especially when seen as divine retribution. 4 A grave nuisance, whatever greatly irritates vb. (context transitive English) To harass, pester or annoy someone persistently or incessantly.

WordNet
plague
  1. n. a serious (sometimes fatal) infection of rodents caused by Yersinia pestis and accidentally transmitted to humans by the bite of an infected rat flea (especially bubonic plague)

  2. any epidemic disease with a high death rate [syn: pestilence]

  3. a swarm of insects that attack plants; "a plague of grasshoppers" [syn: infestation]

  4. any large scale calamity (especially when thought to be sent by God)

  5. an annoyance; "those children are a damn plague"

plague
  1. v. cause to suffer a blight; "Too much rain may blight the garden with mold" [syn: blight]

  2. annoy continually or chronically; "He is known to harry his staff when he is overworked"; "This man harasses his female co-workers" [syn: harass, hassle, harry, chivy, chivvy, chevy, chevvy, beset, molest, provoke]

Wikipedia
Plague (disease)

Plague is an infectious disease that is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Depending on lung infection, or sanitary conditions, plague can be spread in the air, by direct contact, or very rarely by contaminated undercooked food. The symptoms of plague depend on the concentrated areas of infection in each person: bubonic plague in lymph nodes, septicemic plague in blood vessels, pneumonic plague in lungs. It is treatable if detected early. Plague is still relatively common in some remote parts of the world.

Until June 2007, plague was one of the three epidemic diseases specifically reportable to the World Health Organization ( cholera and yellow fever the other two). The bacterium is named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin.

Historically, what are thought to have been massive pandemics of plague swept through Eurasia with very high death rates and causing major cultural changes. The largest of these were the Plague of Justinian of 541–542, The Black Death of the 1340s, continuing in the Second plague pandemic to break out at intervals, and the Third plague pandemic beginning in 1855 and considered inactive from 1959.

The epidemiological use of the term plague is currently applied to any severe bubo inflammation resulting from an infection with Y. pestis. Historically, the medical use of the term plague has been applied to pandemic infections in general. Plague is often synonymous with bubonic plague, but this describes just one of its manifestations. Other names have been used to describe this disease, such as Black Plague and the Black Death; the latter is now used primarily by scholars to describe the second, and most devastating, pandemic of the disease. The etymology of the word plague is believed to come from the Latin word plāga ("blow, wound") and plangere (“to strike, or to strike down”), cf. German Plage (“infestation”).

Plague

Plague or The Plague may refer to:

Plague (comics)

Plague is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. She was originally a member of the Morlocks before joining the Horsemen of Apocalypse.

Plague (1978 film)

Plague is a 1979 Canadian- American science fiction film about a genetic engineering accident, a fertilizing bacterium that escapes from a laboratory in Canada. The film is also known internationally as Induced Syndrome (UK), M-3: The Gemini Strain or Mutation (USA).

Plague (painting)

Plague is an 1898 painting in tempera by the Swiss symbolist artist Arnold Böcklin, held in the Kunstmuseum Basel. It exemplifies the artist's obsession with nightmares of war, pestilence and death. The painting shows Death rides on a winged creature, who travels through the street of a medieval town.

Plague is rendered mostly using shades of pale green, a colour often associated with decomposition. The other predominant tones are black and dull browns; for example, in the clothes worn by the figures shown in the mid and background as they dive for safety before Death's path. The red cloth of the woman shown in the mid-foreground is the only vivid colour seen; she lies across the corpse of a woman who was cut down also.

Plague (song)

"Plague" is a song by Canadian electronic music band, Crystal Castles. It is the first single of the band's 2012 album, (III). On July 25, 2012, it was made available for free download on the duo's SoundCloud page.

Plague (2014 film)

Plague is a 2014 Australian horror film directed by Kostas Ouzas and Nick Kozakis, written by Ouzas, and starring Tegan Crowley, Scott Marcus, and Steven Kennedy. After a zombie apocalypse, Evie (Crowley) and her husband John (Marcus) struggle to survive on their own. They receive help in the form of a resourceful stranger, Charlie (Kennedy), who shows up one day and offers to assist them. It had a private screening at the Astor Theatre in Melbourne on 29 October 2014 and premiered at the Fantastic Planet Sci-Fi, Horror, and Fantasy Film Festival on 22 November.

Usage examples of "plague".

The dreadful pictures of the bodies of plague victims floating down the Thames and accumulating in the Pool of London, however, are now said to be exaggerated.

Cola di Rienzi that plunged Rome into anarchy, the plague came as the peak of successive calamities.

It was later discovered that Japanese scientists subjected Chinese prisoners of war to horrifying experiments with such lethal bioagents as anthrax, cholera, typhoid, and plague.

We know that the Soviets also manufactured plague for use in weapons and researched other biological agents, including all those discussed in the chapters in this book, such as anthrax, tularemia, and botulinum toxin.

It might have been that quixotism had inspired his infatuate gesture, but it might quite as conceivably have been everyday vanity or plain cussedness: a noble impulse to serve a pretty lady in distress, a spontaneous device to engage her interest, or a low desire to plague a personality as antipathetic to his own as that of a rattlesnake.

While Frederick was in Rome to expel Alexander III and put his antipope on the throne, a pestilence broke out, and the plague takes the rich and the poor alike.

The great plague which wasted Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and reappeared in the seventeenth, had been identified with a disease which yields to enlightened treatment, and its ancient virulence was attributed to ignorance of hygiene, and the filthy habits of a former age.

Signing the last autograph, she tactfully refused the politely couched offers to buy her a drink and turned away from the swarm of theater-goers, who converged on the city streets like a plague of taxi-preying locusts closing in on their next meal.

During the Great Plague of London, Ivy berries were given with some success as possessing antiseptic virtues, and to induce perspiration, thus effecting a remission of the symptoms.

Betrayal came on its heels, betrayal that plagued him since the first moment he set eyes on Bree Hansen.

She wanted them to be gone now, now, before anything else happened, as if the plague were waiting to leap out at them like the bogeyman from the church or the brewhouse or the barn.

Black Death was, of course, a shrunken population, which, owing to wars, brigandage, and recurrence of the plague, declined even further by the end of the 14th century.

Mr Burry, that these are the times of the Anti-Christ, that men would wish they had never been born and that pestilence, plague and death would stalk the land?

The rise of nonsectarian interest in the experiential dimensions of contemplative practice is a wonderful departure from the adversarial attitude that has plagued relations among religions for centuries.

Cholera and bubonic plague followed, and then, five years and more later, when the worst seemed to have passed, came the culminating attack by maculated fever.