any epidemic disease with a high death rate

a pernicious evil influence

Specifically, the disease known as the plague; hence, any contagious or infectious epidemic disease that is virulent and devastating.

Fig.: That which is pestilent, noxious, or pernicious to the moral character of great numbers.

An infectious or contagious disease that is widespread and fatal.

1. The plague. 2. An epidemic of any infectious disease.

See Pest.

Any contagious deadly disease.

Epidemic contagious disease; plague.

Any wide spread and fatal infectious malady.

Any contagious disease that is epidemic and mortal; anything pestilent, physically or morally.

Any contagious and malignant or mortal disease; the plague; anything sweepingly destructive.

Even at Cambridge the spirit of the age, which is said to pervade the air like a pestilence had infected me; and I set out on my first visit to Paris full of curiosity about what was then the contemporary movement- at its last gasp. – Since Cézanne by Clive Bell

Now I understood that all the slaves were being thrown overboard because of the want of water, and in the hope that it might avail to save from the pestilence those of the Spaniards who still remained alive. – Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard

They kin bring on all manner of pestilence an' make cows go dry an' hosses fling their riders. – A Pagan of the Hills by Charles Neville Buck

Before him walked the pestilence And burning coals went forth at his feet. – The Portland Sketch Book by Various

These, for a short time, were of rather a dismal character; for, hearing the noise of a horse's hoofs in the silent streets at that hour of the night, the people opened their doors as he passed by, thinking it the pest- cart, and brought forth many a miserable victim of the pestilence – The Midnight Queen by May Agnes Fleming

It is the pestilence that walketh by night that is intolerable. – Prince Zaleski by M.P. Shiel

Several who had died of the pestilence and whom it had been impossible to bury by day, were being borne to the grave together. – The Complete Historical Romances of Georg Ebers by Georg Ebers

But if the moral pestilence that rises with them, and in the eternal laws of outraged nature, is inseparable from them, could be made discernible too, how terrible the revelation! – Dickens As an Educator by James L. (James Laughlin) Hughes

The breath and the charm and the pestilence of her passed over Neale like fire. – The U.P. Trail by Zane Grey

He goes about like a man afflicted with a pestilence – The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story by Various

The worship was accordingly ordained and executed, and the pestilence forthwith abated. – Japan by David Murray

It was always said that 50, 000 people left the city at the commencement of the pestilence and that 14, 000 of those who remained in it fell victims to the disease. – Wanderings in South America by Charles Waterton

Law and religion are not completely efficient against the spiritual pestilence – A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 5 (of 10) From "The Works of Voltaire - A Contemporary Version" by François-Marie Arouet (AKA Voltaire) Commentator: John Morley Tobias Smollett H.G. Leigh

And again, by his pen and otherwise, in theoretical discussions on the origin of the pestilence – The History of the Medical Department of Transylvania University by Robert Peter

He does not want you to come near him, lest you, too, become affected by the pestilence – The Nameless Castle by Maurus Jókai

Otherwise we have been free from pestilence war, and calamities, which often overtake nations; and, as far as human judgment can penetrate the future, no cause seems to exist to threaten our present peace. – Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present by Various

On land the French army suffers terribly from pestilence – Napoleon's Young Neighbor by Helen Leah Reed

Pestilence silk and skins not to be worn during, p. – Early English Meals and Manners by Various

To him it was occupation enough to apply at the bedside the best of all that he knew for the good of his patient; to protect the community against the inroads of pestilence to teach the young all that he himself had been taught, with all that his own experience had added; to leave on record some of the most important results of his long observation. – The Complete PG Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

These were the names of twin gods, and worshipped at certain villages in time of war, famine, and pestilence – Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before by George Turner