Meaning & use
pestilential
Last updated
Meanings
adjectivecomparableformal
Likely to cause or spread a deadly epidemic, or related to such a disease.
Grammar: Usually comes before a noun: pestilential swamps.
Patterns
- pestilential swamps
- a pestilential disease
Early settlers feared the pestilential marshes beside the river.
The doctors blamed the pestilential air of the crowded slums for the outbreak.
Ships from the port were turned away as possible carriers of some pestilential fever.
adjectivebefore a nounfigurativehumorous
Extremely annoying, unpleasant or harmful.
Grammar: A figurative, often humorous use; it appears before a noun: that pestilential noise.
Patterns
- a pestilential nuisance
Our pestilential neighbors played drums at midnight again.
He cursed the pestilential mosquitoes that bit him all night.
The pestilential traffic made the trip last three hours.
Word forms
| comparative | more pestilential |
|---|---|
| superlative | most pestilential |
Common combinations
- pestilential swamp
- The explorers crossed a pestilential swamp full of mosquitoes.
- pestilential air
- People once believed pestilential air caused the plague.
- pestilential fever
- A pestilential fever swept through the harbor town.
- pestilential slums
- Reformers wrote about the pestilential slums of the old city.
- pestilential nuisance
- The barking dog became a pestilential nuisance to the whole street.
Synonyms and how they differ
- infectious
- Infectious is the standard modern word for a disease that spreads, and is less dramatic than pestilential.
- noxious
- Noxious means harmful or poisonous, often about fumes, and does not necessarily involve disease.
- plaguey
- Plaguey is informal and mild, meaning annoying, whereas pestilential is stronger and more formal.
- insalubrious
- Insalubrious means unhealthy to live in, and is a more restrained word than pestilential.
Opposites
Word family
- pestilence noun
- a deadly and fast-spreading disease
- pest noun
- an annoying person, or an animal or insect that harms crops
- pestilent adjective
- an older word with the same meaning as pestilential
- pestiferous adjective
- carrying disease, or very annoying
Commonly confused: pestilential or pestilent?
pestilential vs pestilent
Pestilent is a rarer, older form meaning much the same. Pestilential is the more common word today.
Practice
Which sentence uses pestilential in its original, literal sense?
Choose one answer.
The literal sense is disease-spreading, which fits the plague port. The other sentences use it figuratively to mean annoying.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “pestilential”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.