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PREVALENT
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I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Most frequent or common
Example:
prevailing winds
Synonyms:
dominant; predominant; prevailing; prevalent; rife
Classified under:
Similar:
frequent (coming at short intervals or habitually)
Derivation:
prevail (continue to exist)
prevalence (the quality of prevailing generally; being widespread)
Context examples:
Here and there we passed Cszeks and Slovaks, all in picturesque attire, but I noticed that goitre was painfully prevalent.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
The most prevalent of nonprotein nitrogenous compounds circulating in the blood used as an indicator of liver and kidney function.
(Blood Urea, NCI Thesaurus)
While impossible to determine exact provenance, the researchers detected a shift in European walrus finds around the 13th century to walruses from an evolutionary branch most prevalent in the waters around Baffin Bay.
(Over-hunting walruses contributed to the collapse of Norse Greenland, University of Cambridge)
Faith based on a series of beliefs but not formalized into a religion; also, a fixed coherent set of beliefs prevalent in a community or society.
(Belief System, NCI Thesaurus)
It said fortified infant cereals were relatively cheap in high- and upper middle-income countries but very expensive in low-income countries, where undernutrition in early childhood is most prevalent.
(High cost of healthy food to blame for malnutrition, SciDev.Net)
Cesium Cs 137 is prevalent due to its spontaneous production, which occurs as a result of nuclear fission of other radioactive materials, such as uranium and plutonium.
(Cesium Cs 137, NCI Thesaurus)
That form of the gene is now very prevalent in southern Africa with the risk that if we do nothing there's a chance that those control measures won't work against those type of mosquitoes, he said.
(Malaria-carrying Mosquitoes Becoming Resistant to Bed Nets in Southern Africa, VOA)
Dysphagia is prevalent among older people in particular (30%–40% of the elderly people admitted to hospitals or care homes) and patients with neurological or neurodegenerative disorders and diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, cerebral palsy, or strokes.
(Scientists designed the first test to detect dysphagia, University of Granada)
The research from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) and the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine, Philadelphia, observed that T helper (Th) 17 cells were much more prevalent in the gum tissue of humans with periodontitis than in the gums of their healthy counterparts, and that the amount of Th17 cells correlated with disease severity.
(Researchers identify immune culprits linked to inflammation and bone loss in gum disease, National Institutes of Health)
However, there is increasing evidence to suggest that heavy metals may have other adverse effects on health – including cardiovascular disease such as heart disease and stroke – even at lower levels of exposure, which might be prevalent in many parts of the world.
(Experts warn of cardiovascular risk from heavy metal pollution, University of Cambridge)
