epidemic
pronunciation
How to pronounce epidemic in British English:
UK [ˌepɪˈdemɪk]
How to pronounce epidemic in American English:
US [ˌepɪˈdemɪk]
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- Noun:
- a widespread outbreak of an infectious disease; many people are infected at the same time
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- Adjective:
- (especially of medicine) of disease or anything resembling a disease; attacking or affecting many individuals in a community or a population simultaneously
Word Origin
- epidemic
- epidemic: [17] An epidemic is literally something that has an effect ‘among the people’. The word comes from French épidémique, a derivative of the noun épidémie, which goes back via late Latin epidēmia to Greek epidēmíā ‘disease prevalent among the people’. This was a noun use of epidémios, a compound adjective formed from the prefix epí- ‘among’ and demos ‘people’ (source of English democracy).=> democracy
- epidemic (adj.)
- c. 1600, "common to or affecting a whole people," originally and usually, though not etymologically, in reference to diseases, from French épidémique, from épidemié "an epidemic disease," from Medieval Latin epidemia, from Greek epidemia "a stay in a place; prevalence of an epidemic disease" (especially the plague), from epi "among, upon" (see epi-) + demos "people, district" (see demotic).
- epidemic (n.)
- 1757, "an epidemic disease, a temporary prevalence of a disease throughout a community," from epidemic (adj.); earlier epideme (see epidemy). An Old English noun for this (persisting in Middle English) was man-cwealm.
Synonym
Example
- 1. Americans are experiencing an epidemic of overweight and obesity .
- 2. The world health organization calls obesity a global epidemic .
- 3. Monitoring the chatter , however , may nip such an epidemic in the bud .
- 4. A full-blown epidemic in a big wheat-growing area could therefore be catastrophic .
- 5. The swine flu virus in the u.s. is the same one causing a deadly epidemic in mexico . What is swine flu ?