Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definitions: Epidemic |
EpidemicAdjective1. (especially of medicine) of disease or anything resembling a disease; attacking or affecting many individuals in a community or a population simultaneously; "an epidemic outbreak of influenza". Noun1. A widespread outbreak of an infectious disease; many people are infected at the same time. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "epidemic" was first used: 1603. (references) |
| Domain | Definitions |
Biology & Biotechnology | Of populations of plants(epiphytotic), animals and viruses that build up, often rapidly, to highly abnormal and generally injurious levels. Source: European Union. (references) |
Dream Interpretation | To dream of an epidemic, signifies prostration of mental faculties and worry from distasteful tasks. Contagion among relatives or friends is foretold by dreams of this nature. Source: Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted .... |
Health | Occurring suddenly in numbers clearly in excess of normal expectancy; said especially of infectious diseases but applied also to any disease, injury, or other health-related event occurring in such outbreaks. (references) |
Medicine | A disease of high morbidity which is only occasionally present in an animal community:it affects a great number of animals in a large area of land at the same time and spreads with great rapidity over a wide territory. Source: European Union. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Antonym: endemic (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Disease | Taint, pollution, infection, sepsis, septicity, infestation; epidemic, pandemic, endemic, epizootic; murrain, plague, pestilence, pox. |
Morbific; epidemic, endemic; zymotic. | |
Generality | Universal; catholic, catholical; common, worldwide; ecumenical, oecumenical; transcendental; prevalent, prevailing, rife, epidemic, besetting; all over, covered with. |
Insalubrity | Contagious, infectious, catching, taking, epidemic, zymotic; epizootic. |
Nonassemblage Dispersion | Adjective: unassembled; (see assemble; ); dispersed; Verb: sparse, dispread, broadcast, sporadic, widespread; epidemic; (general); adrift, stray; disheveled, streaming. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | You are an epidemic. (Todo sobre mi madre; writing credit: Pedro Almodvar) I'm a raging epidemic of romance. (Dinosaur; writing credit: Walon Green; Thom Enriquez) This story is about a sickness, a spreading epidemic that threatens to destroy our very way of life. (Teenage Doll; writing credit: Charles B. Griffith) I predict an epidemic of decapitations caused by ceiling fans flying loose. (Moron Movies; writing credit: Griff Rhys Jones; Mel Smith) Or maybe risk starting an epidemic in the entire country? (Hud; writing credit: Harriet Frank Jr.; Larry McMurtry) | |
Movie/TV Titles | A Snakeville Epidemic (1914) The Epidemic (1914) Epidemic (1988) The Love Epidemic (1975) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
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High Tech |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | The Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) is the country's critical epidemiology training service, combating the causes of major epidemics. Over the past 50 years, EIS officers have played pivotal roles in combating the root causes of major epidemics.Credit: CDC. |  | Epidemic curve for 54 symptomatic cases of acute pulmonary histoplasmosis in members of a wagon train. Bar graph. Am J Med 71:759.Credit: CDC. |
 | Since 1951, the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) has played a pivotal role in combating the root causes of major epidemics throughout the world.Credit: CDC. |  | Sign over the cell that housed Dr. Samuel Mudd, controversial doctor who treated John Wilkes Booth following Abraham Lincoln's assassination. Mudd was convicted of helping Booth and served three years of his sentence at Fort Jefferson. He helped treat many Union soldiers during a yellow fever epidemic and was subsequently paroled.Credit: America's Coastlines. |
 | U.S. Army. Base Hospital No.37, Dartford, England. : Personnel quarters during Influenza Epidemic.Credit: National Library of Medicine. |  | [Public Health: An incident of the small-pox epidemic in Montreal] / Robert Harris.Credit: National Library of Medicine. |
 | The epidemic attacks mainly children and young people. / WHO photo.Credit: National Library of Medicine. |  | While You Make Up Your Mind About Whooping Cough Vaccination, Thousands Of Children Are Holding Their Breath : There's An Epidemic. Get Your Child Vaccinated Now.Credit: National Library of Medicine. |
 | Clothing - protective : Protective mask after Dr. Broquet - used during the epidemic of pneumonic plague in Manchuria.Credit: National Library of Medicine. |  | General Exfoliative Epidemic Dermatitis.Credit: National Library of Medicine. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Author | Date | Quotation |
Communist Manifesto | 1848 | It spread like an epidemic. (reference) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Title | Author | Quote |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | In that epidemic, Magnon lost her two boys, still very young, on the same day, one in the morning, the other at night. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | The HIV/AIDS epidemic. (references) | |
Variable, depending on epidemic activity. (references) | ||
A pandemic is a worldwide epidemic of a disease. (references) | ||
Business | The GOP has launched a number of programs focussed on health education, maternal & child health including family planning, immunization, prevention and control of epidemic diseases and treatment of common diseases and injuries. (references) | |
Civil Liberties | China | In May the Government prevented Dr. Gao Yaojie, who had exposed the cause of an AIDS epidemic in several villages, from traveling abroad to receive an award. (references) |
Economic History | Thailand | However, the AIDS epidemic has had a major impact on the Thai population. (references) |
The Netherlands | The exportation of the synthetic drug ecstasy to the U.S. during 1999 reached epidemic proportions. (references) | |
Human Rights | Uzbekistan | Tuberculosis and hepatitis are epidemic in the prisons, making even short periods of incarceration potentially deadly. (references) |
Indigenous People | Ecuador | Land is scarce in the more heavily populated highland areas, where high infant mortality, malnutrition, and epidemic disease are common. (references) |
Trade | Ukraine | The project objective is to implement measures for TB/HIV/AIDS epidemic control in Ukraine. (references) |
Travel | Honduras | There have been reports of cholera as well, although not in epidemic proportions. (references) |
Ecuador | Yellow fever and cholera are also reaching epidemic levels in some outlying regions and are encroaching on the outskirts of cities such as Guayaquil. (references) | |
Women | Hungary | A 1995 report on the country prepared under the auspices of the U.N. to evaluate compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women found that sexual harassment in the workplace was "virtually epidemic." Women's groups reported that there is little support for efforts to criminalize sexual harassment, and that sexual harassment is tolerated by women who fear unemployment more than harassment. (references) |
Worker Rights | Zambia | The problem has been compounded by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which has produced a growing number of orphans. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Phrase(s) |
Robert Atkins | Of course. Because everybody heard low fat, low fat, low fat, they had to eat more carbohydrates. That's what caused the epidemic. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "Epidemic" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 99.55% of the time. "Epidemic" is used about 441 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 99.55% | 439 | 13,152 |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 0.45% | 2 | 245,945 |
| Total | 100.00% | 441 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "epidemic": epidemic cholera ♦ epidemic control ♦ epidemic disease ♦ epidemic encephalitis ♦ epidemic hepatitis ♦ epidemic meningitis ♦ epidemic myalgia ♦ epidemic parotitis ♦ epidemic pleurodynia ♦ epidemic roseola ♦ epidemic tremor ♦ epidemic tremors. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "epidemic": epidemic-like. | |
Ending with "epidemic": aids-epidemic, anti-epidemic, mini-epidemic, virus-turned-epidemic. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "epidemic"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | epidemik (epidemical), epidemi, ngjitës (adhesive, agglutinative, ascendant, catching, cement, communicable, contagious, dauby, epidemical, glue, gluey, glutinous, gooey, gummy, hum paste, infectious, mucilage, pitchy, soaring, stick, sticking, sticky, tacky, tenacious, transmissible, upward, viscous). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | وبائي (epidemical, epizootic, pestilential), وباء (pest, pestilence, plague, scourge), سائد (current, general, predominant, prevailing, prevalent, ruling), شائع (afloat, common, current, general, popular, prevalent, public, rife, trendy, two a penny, widespread). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | епидемичен, епидемия (pestilence, plague, rash). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 疫 (plague), 瘟疫 , 瘟 (pestilence, plague), 流行性 (Epidemical). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | epidemie, epidemický (epidemical, pandemic). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Danish | epidemisk (epidemiologic, epidemiological). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dutch | epidemie (epidemics). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Farsi | مسری (Communicable, Communicative, Contagious, Infectious, Zymotic), همه گیر, واگیر (Contagious, Infectious), عالمگیر (Universal), جهانی (Ecumenical, Global, Planetary, Universal), بیماری همه گیر. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | epidemia (contagious disease, epizootic, pest). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | épidémique (epidemical), épidémie (epidemics). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | seuche (contagion, epidemic plague, epidemics, pandemic disease, pestilence, plague, scourge, transmissible disease), epidemie, epidemisch. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | επιδημία (blast, pest, pestilence, pestis, plague). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hebrew | מ'פ" (murrain, pestilence, plague, rout), אפי"מי", אפי"מי. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | járvány. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Indonesian | epidemi, wabah. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | epidemia (epidemics, outbreak), epidemico (epidemical). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | 病気の流行 , 疫癘 (pestilence, plague), 疫病 (infectious disease, plague), 流行病 , 悪疫 , 伝"病 (contagious disease, infectious disease). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | びょうきのりゅう"う, で"せ"びょう (contagious disease, infectious disease), りゅう"うびょう, あくえき, やくびょう (infectious disease, plague), えきびょう (infectious disease, plague), えきれい (pestilence, plague). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Korean | 염병 (Plague). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | ym-ghorley, chingys theayagh. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Norwegian | epidemisk, epidemi, farsott. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | epidemicay epidemia (contagion, pestilent, pestis, plague). (various references) epidemie (lues, pestilence), epidemic (epidemical). (various references) эпидемический (epidemical), эпидемия (lues, pestilence). (various references) epidemijski (epidemical), epidemija. (various references) epidemia (outbreak), epidémico (epidemical). (various references) farsot (contagion, pest, pestilence, plague), epidemisk (epidemical), epidemi. (various references) โรคระบา" (ที่แพร่อย่างรว"เร็ว), การลุกลามอย่างรว"เร็ว, ซึ่งระบา"อย่างรว"เร็ว. (various references) epidemi, yaygın (broad, common, diffuse, diffusive, endemic, epidemical, expansive, extensive, familiar, far flung, general, pandemic, pervasive, prevailing, prevalent, regnant, rife, wide, widespread), salgın hastalık (epizootic, murrain), salgın (contagious, epidemical, outbreak, rife). (various references) епідемічний (epidemical), епідемія (pestilence). (various references) dịch (epidemical, loose). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Greek | 700 BCE-300 CE | epidemia. (various references) |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | pestis pestis. (various references) |
| Italian | 900-Modern | influenza. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "epidemic": epidemical, epidemically, epidemicities, epidemicity, epidemics. (additional references) | |
Words ending with "epidemic": interepidemic. (additional references) | |
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"Epidemic" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: emidemic, enidemic, epedemic, epicdemic, epidemeic, epidemia, epiemic. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "epidemic" (pronounced e'pude"mik) |
| 6 | -u d e" m i k | academic, nonacademic. |
| 5 | -d e" m i k | endemic, pandemic. |
| 4 | -e" m i k | polemic, systemic. |
| 3 | -m i k | aerodynamic, anemic, atomic, autonomic, bulimic, cataclysmic, ceramic, comic, cosmic, cytoplasmic, diatomic, dynamic, economic, electrodynamic, endothermic, ergonomic, exothermic, formic, gastronomic, gimmick, gnomic, hemodynamic, hypodermic, hypoglycemic, hypothalamic, logarithmic, macroeconomic, microeconomic, mimic, monatomic, noneconomic, ophthalmic, organismic, panoramic, patronymic, photodynamic, psychodynamic, rhythmic, samek, seismic, socioeconomic, subatomic, tragicomic, uneconomic. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "c-d-e-e-i-i-m-p" | |
-2 letters: impede, pieced. | |
-3 letters: deice, imide, imped, medic, medii, piece. | |
-4 letters: cede, cedi, cepe, deem, deep, deme, dice, dime, eide, emic, epic, iced, idem, imid, impi, meed, mice, midi, peed, pice, pied. | |
-5 letters: cee, cep, dee, die, dim, dip, eme, ice, imp, med, mid, pec, ped, pee, pic, pie. | |
| Words containing the letters "c-d-e-e-i-i-m-p" | |
+1 letter: epicedium, epidemics, epidermic. | |
+2 letters: epidemical, spermicide. | |
+3 letters: epidemicity, polemicized, spermicides. | |
+4 letters: complexified, epidemically, improvidence, misperceived. | |
+5 letters: epidemicities, epidemiologic, improvidences, interepidemic, interpandemic. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)45 70 69 64 65 6D 69 63 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references). .--. .. -.. . -- .. -.-. |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01000101 01110000 01101001 01100100 01100101 01101101 01101001 01100011 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)E p i d e m i c |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0045 0070 0069 0064 0065 006D 0069 0063 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)3982757071797569 |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Photo Album 6. Quotations: Historic 7. Quotations: Fiction 8. Quotations: Non-fiction | 9. Quotations: Spoken 10. Usage Frequency 11. Expressions 12. Expressions: Internet | 13. Translations: Modern 14. Translations: Ancient 15. Derivations 16. Rhymes | 17. Anagrams 18. Orthography 19. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
