Library / English Dictionary

PLAGUE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

An annoyance

Example:

those children are a damn plague

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Hypernyms ("plague" is a kind of...):

annoyance; bother; botheration; infliction; pain; pain in the ass; pain in the neck (something or someone that causes trouble; a source of unhappiness)

Domain usage:

colloquialism (a colloquial expression; characteristic of spoken or written communication that seeks to imitate informal speech)

Derivation:

plague (annoy continually or chronically)

plaguey; plaguy (causing irritation or annoyance)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Any large scale calamity (especially when thought to be sent by God)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Hypernyms ("plague" is a kind of...):

calamity; cataclysm; catastrophe; disaster; tragedy (an event resulting in great loss and misfortune)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A swarm of insects that attack plants

Example:

a plague of grasshoppers

Synonyms:

infestation; plague

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Hypernyms ("plague" is a kind of...):

cloud; swarm (a group of many things in the air or on the ground)

Derivation:

plague (cause to suffer a blight)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Any epidemic disease with a high death rate

Synonyms:

pest; pestilence; plague

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Hypernyms ("plague" is a kind of...):

epidemic disease (any infectious disease that develops and spreads rapidly to many people)

Derivation:

plague (cause to suffer a blight)

plaguey (likely to spread and cause an epidemic disease)

Sense 5

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 ("plague" 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 "plague"):

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)

Derivation:

plague (cause to suffer a blight)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Annoy continually or chronically

Example:

This man harasses his female co-workers

Synonyms:

beset; chevvy; chevy; chivvy; chivy; harass; harry; hassle; molest; plague; provoke

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Hypernyms (to "plague" is one way to...):

annoy; bother; chafe; devil; get at; get to; gravel; irritate; nark; nettle; rag; rile; vex (cause annoyance in; disturb, especially by minor irritations)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "plague"):

goad; needle (annoy or provoke, as by constant criticism)

bedevil; crucify; dun; frustrate; rag; torment (treat cruelly)

haze (harass by imposing humiliating or painful tasks, as in military institutions)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody

Sentence example:

Sam cannot plague Sue

Derivation:

plague (an annoyance)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Cause to suffer a blight

Example:

Too much rain may blight the garden with mold

Synonyms:

blight; plague

Classified under:

Verbs of raining, snowing, thawing, thundering

Hypernyms (to "plague" is one way to...):

afflict; smite (cause physical pain or suffering in)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s somebody
Something ----s something

Derivation:

plague (a swarm of insects that attack plants)

plague (any epidemic disease with a high death rate)

plague (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)

Credits

 Context examples: 

Weston may grow cross from the wantonness of comfort, or his son may plague him.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

My cousins have been so plaguing me!

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Oh! you can do nothing but what you do already: be plagued very often, and never lose your temper.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

“What the plague did you ask me for then?” said Simon.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

"By combining biological, ecological, historical and sociological analyses, new constraints on the impact of this plague were identified."

(Justinianic plague not a landmark pandemic?, National Science Foundation)

"But if you are going to call the Winged Monkeys we must run away, for they are full of mischief and think it great fun to plague us."

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

He had to forage for himself, and he foraged well, though he was oft-times a plague to the squaws in consequence.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Scientists worry that anthrax, botulism, Ebola and other hemorrhagic fever viruses, plague, or smallpox could be used as biological agents.

(Biodefense and Bioterrorism, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

Plague take it, Ned! cried the squire, I would that my clerk Johnson were here, for I would deal as kindly by you as the law allows; and yet I am, as you hear, called upon to secure your person.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Sometimes they determined to starve me; or at least to shoot me in the face and hands with poisoned arrows, which would soon despatch me; but again they considered, that the stench of so large a carcass might produce a plague in the metropolis, and probably spread through the whole kingdom.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)