pandemic
/pænˈdɛmɪk/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.68 in modern English
15
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
3
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Of a disease: epidemic over a wide geographical area and affecting a large proportion of the population; also, of or pertaining to a disease of this nature.
noun
A pandemic disease; a disease that affects a wide geographical area and a large proportion of the population.
noun
A pandemic disease; a disease that affects a wide geographical area and a large proportion of the population.
Example Sentences
- "The chaotic breakdown of public health as World War I dragged on is widely recognized as exacerbating the disease burden of the pandemic outbreak of influenza in 1918."
- "Among diſeaſes, ſome do more generally haunt a Country, by reaſon of a certain property in the air, produced through a particular influence of the climat; and the fuming of malign ſtreams out of the earth; whence ſuch diſeaſes are termed Endemick or Pandemick: Others, though they are general, do only rage at a certain ſeaſon of the year, and are therefore called Epidemick; [...]"
- "Diſeaſes are likewise endemic and pandemic. [...] The pandemic affect the People in general at one and the ſame Time, without Regard to Sex, Age, Condition, or Temperament; ſuch as peſtilential Diſeaſes."
- "Avian–human influenza A reassortant viruses with the phenotype of restricted replication in primates would not be able to spread efficiently from human to human, and therefore viruses with these gene constellations would not be expected to give rise to pandemic human influenza viruses. This represents one possible obstacle to the emergence of new pandemic influenza A viruses in humans, namely, the presence of avian–human influenza gene constellations that restrict viral replication in primates."
- "A former age insisted upon the efficacy of scarlet curtains and red broad-cloth in small-pox—a succeeding age thinks it has proved the practice superstitious,—or they refer to it fancy. Now that said fancy is an element in the constitution of man, possibly more powerful in its effects upon the cure or aggravation of disease, than all the drugs in all the chemists' laboratories in all the towns of the world. For it is universal and not partial, pandemic and not solitary."
- "Allow Class[ical] Ō and Ǔ to merge into a single phoneme, namely /o/, [...] and the specimens under investigation will emerge as /nodo/, /nokʼe/, and /noro/, the last-mentioned driven by an early pandemic tendency to change into /nora/ as, inherently, the designation of a female."
Etymology
From Ancient Greek πάνδημος (pándēmos, “of or belonging to all the people, public”) + English -ic (suffix forming adjectives from nouns with the sense ‘of or pertaining to’). πάνδημος is derived from παν- (pan-, prefix meaning ‘all, every’) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂- (“to protect, shepherd”)) + δῆμος (dêmos, “the common people; free citizens, sovereign people”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *deh₂- (“to divide, share”)). Compare Late Latin pandēmus (“affecting all the people, general, public”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /pænˈdɛmɪk/
- British English: /pænˈdɛmɪk/