rife
/ɹaɪf/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.15 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Widespread, common, prevalent, current (mainly of unpleasant or harmful things).
adj
Full of (mostly unpleasant or harmful things).
adv
Example Sentences
- "Smallpox was rife after the siege had been lifted."
- "Rumors were rife that the factory was about to shut down."
- "Before the plague of London, inflammations of the lungs were rife and mortal."
- "The tumult of loud mirth was rife."
- "She was afterwards Lady Keith; and the mention of this name in the tale, as it were by mere accident, fixes the era of it in the reign of James the Fourth, at the very time that fairies, brownies, and witches, were at the rifest in Scotland."
- "The 'denominational considerations' mentioned below relate, of course, to anti-Semitic feeling, which was already rife in Vienna during the last years of the nineteenth century."
Etymology
From Middle English rife, from Old English rīfe, rȳfe (“rife, abundant, frequent”), from Proto-West Germanic *rīb, from Proto-Germanic *rībaz (“generous”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁reyp- (“to tear (off), rip”). Cognate with West Frisian rju (“rife, much”), Dutch rijf (“abundant, copious”), Low German rive (“abundant, munificent”), Icelandic rífur (“rife, munificent”), Faroese ríviligur (“plentiful, abundant”), Faroese rívan (“abundantly”), Icelandic reifa (“to bestow”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: rife, rīfe, *rīb, *rībaz, *h₁reyp-
Regional Pronunciation
- British English: /ɹaɪf/