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PESTIS
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A serious (sometimes fatal) infection of rodents caused by Yersinia pestis and accidentally transmitted to humans by the bite of a flea that has bitten an infected animal
Synonyms:
pest; pestilence; pestis; plague
Classified under:
Nouns denoting stable states of affairs
Hypernyms ("pestis" is a kind of...):
epidemic disease (any infectious disease that develops and spreads rapidly to many people)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "pestis"):
bubonic plague; glandular plague; pestis bubonica (the most common form of the plague in humans; characterized by chills, prostration, delirium and the formation of buboes in the armpits and groin; does not spread from person to person)
plague pneumonia; pneumonic plague; pulmonic plague (a rapidly progressive and frequently fatal form of the plague that can spread through the air from person to person; characterized by lung involvement with chill, bloody expectoration and high fever)
septicemic plague (an especially dangerous and generally fatal form of the plague in which infecting organisms invade the bloodstream; does not spread from person to person)
