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EPIDEMIC DISEASE
Pronunciation (US): | (GB): |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Any infectious disease that develops and spreads rapidly to many people
Classified under:
Nouns denoting stable states of affairs
Hypernyms ("epidemic disease" is a kind of...):
infectious disease (a disease transmitted only by a specific kind of contact)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "epidemic disease"):
pest; pestilence; plague (any epidemic disease with a high death rate)
pest; pestilence; pestis; 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)
Bornholm disease; diaphragmatic pleurisy; epidemic myalgia; epidemic pleurodynia; myosis (an acute infectious disease occurring in epidemic form and featuring paroxysms of pain (usually in the chest))