pestilence

Other forms of pestilence

plural

pestilences·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about pestilence

What does pestilence mean?

pestilence means "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". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in pestilence?

pestilence has 3 syllables: pes-ti-lence. The stress falls on "pes". In IPA it is /ˈpɛstələns/.

What is another word for pestilence?

Close synonyms include plague, pest, pestis, plague, pest. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is pestilence a common word?

pestilence is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.