pandemic

comparative more pandemic · superlative most pandemic

1. epidemiologyOf 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.

   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.

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   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; [...]

   [[1672?], Gideon Harvey, “Of the Original and Contagion of Consumptions”, in Morbus Anglicus, or A Theoretick and Practical Discourse of Consumptions, and Hypochondriack Melancholy. […], London: Printed for William Thackeray, […], →OCLC, pages 1–2

   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.

   1754, R[ichard] Brookes, “Of Pathology”, in An Introduction to Physic and Surgery: […], London: Printed for J[ohn] Newbery, […], →OCLC, page 41

   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.

   1990, John Treanor, Brian Murphy, “Genes Involved in the Restriction of Replication of Avian Influenza A Viruses in Primates”, in Edouard Kerstak, R. G. Marusyk, F. A. Murphy, M[arc] H[ubert] V[ictor] van Regenmortel, editors, Virus Variability, Epidemiology, and Control (Applied Virology Research; 2), New York, N.Y.; London: Plenum Medical Book Company, →ISBN, page 165

   The rate of obesity has tripled in lower-income countries that have adopted Western diets and lifestyles, with doctors warning that the threat of diabetes has become pandemic.

   2018 January 25, Annie Lowrey, “More Taxes, Less Death?”, in The Atlantic

   Synonyms: pandemial, pandemical, panepidemic · Antonyms: nonpandemic

2. derogatoryusuallyGeneral, widespread.

   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.

   1987, Yakov Malkiel, “The Transmission into Romance of Latin NŌDUS, NǓPTIAE, NǓRUS, and NǓX: Diachronic Interplay of Phonetic and Semantic Analogies”, in General Linguistics, volume 27, number 4, pages 239–260; republished in Diachronic Studies in Lexicology, Affixation, Phonology (Edita and Inedita, 1979–1988; II), Amsterdam; Philadelphia, Pa.: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1992, →ISBN, page 207

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   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.

   1844 May, “Art. VI.—On Superstitions Connected with the History and Practice of Medicine and Surgery. By John Joseph Pettigrew, […] London: Churchill. [book review]”, in The Monthly Review, volumes II (New and Improved Series), London: G. Henderson, […], →OCLC, pages 70–71

   Synonyms: common, ubiquitous, universal, common, disseminated, far-flung, extensive, pervasive

plural pandemics

1. epidemiologyA pandemic disease; a disease that affects a wide geographical area and a large proportion of the population.

   The American pandemic of men's violence against women is one of the greatest tragedies of our time.

   2000, Jackson Katz, “The Sounds of Silence: Notes on the Personal Politics of Men’s Leadership in Gender-based Violence Prevention Education”, in Nancy Lesko, editor, Masculinities at School (Research on Men and Masculinities; 11), Thousand Oaks, Calif.; London: SAGE Publications, →ISBN, part 4 (Pedagogies, Polices, and Leadership), page 283

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   Those diseases which have some strong resemblance in their general characters, and attack many individuals in a large extent of country at about the same time, are commonly called epidemics. If all, or about all the inhabitants of a country be similarly attacked, at or near the same time, with a particular complaint, it is more properly called a pandemic.

   1832 September 5, J. A. Allen, “Epidemics. Remarks on the Etiology and Character of Epidemics.”, in The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, volume VII, number 4, Boston, Mass.: Printed and published by Clapp & Hull, […], →OCLC, page 53

   The full and correct theory of influenza will not be reached by the great pandemics only. On the other hand some very localized epidemics may prove to be signal instances for the pathology, although they do not bear upon the source of the great historic waves of influenza.

   1894, Charles Creighton, “Influenzas and Epidemic Agues”, in A History of Epidemics in Britain, volume II (From the Extinction of Plague to the Present Time), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: At the University Press, →OCLC, page 431

   The outbreak [of potato blight] in Ireland was part of a pandemic—that is, the disease suddenly became widespread and destructive almost simultaneously in several European countries and in the United States as well. [...] [T]he pathogen increased and became widely distributed, so that when the weather became generally and extremely favorable, as happened during the years of the pandemic, it could attack rapidly and in force over a wide area at once.

   1953, Jessie I. Wood, “Three Billion Dollars a Year”, in Alfred Stefferud, editor, The Yearbook of Agriculture 1953: Plant Diseases (83d Congress, 1st Session, House Document; no. 122), Washington, D.C.: United States Department of Agriculture, →OCLC, page 6, column 1

   In his first book since the 2008 essay collection Natural Acts: A Sidelong View of Science and Nature, David Quammen looks at the natural world from yet another angle: the search for the next human pandemic, what epidemiologists call "the next big one."

   2013 January–February, Katie L. Burke, “Ecological Dependency [review of Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic (2012) by David Quammen]”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 1, New Haven, Conn.: Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 10 Nov 2016, page 64

   What I spend a lot of time worrying about are things like pandemics. You can’t build walls in order to prevent the next airborne lethal flu from landing on our shores.

   2016 October, Scott Dadich, quoting Barack Obama, “Barack Obama Talks AI, Robo Cars, and the Future of the World”, in Wired, →ISSN

   Synonyms: pandemia

   1. specificallyepidemiologyThe COVID-19 pandemic.

      Synonyms: pandemia

1. GreekRomannot comparablerarehuman sciencesAlternative letter-case form of Pandemic (“of Aphrodite Pandemos, the earthly aspect of the Greek goddess of beauty and love Aphrodite and her Roman counterpart Venus, as contrasted with the heavenly aspect known as Aphrodite Urania: earthly, physical, sensual.”).

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   The meeting of Venus with Phoebe distinguishes her roles: the business of Venus in her pandemic form is to ensure the immortality of the kinds. Her Garden has the voluptuousness necessary to ensure this, and this is 'the first seminarie / Of all things that are borne to live and die / According to their kindes.' [Quoting from Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene.]

   1967, Frank Kermode, “World Without End or Beginning”, in The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction (The Mary Flexner Lectures on the Humanities; 1965), New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →OCLC; new edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 2000, →ISBN, page 76

alternative pandemic

1. GreekRomannot comparablehuman sciencesOf Aphrodite Pandemos, the earthly aspect of the Greek goddess of beauty and love Aphrodite and her Roman counterpart Venus, as contrasted with the heavenly aspect known as Aphrodite Urania: earthly, physical, sensual.

   That was spoken of the celestial Aphrodite, whose symbol is the tortoise, the emblem of domestic modesty and chastity: not of that baser Pandemic one.

   1852 January – 1853 April, Charles Kingsley, Jun., “She Stoops to Conquer”, in Hypatia: Or, New Foes with an Old Face. […], volume II, London: John W[illiam] Parker and Son, […], published 1853, →OCLC, page 109

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   [page 64] The Love, therefore, which attends upon Venus Pandemos is, in truth, common to the vulgar, and presides over transient and fortuitous connexions, and is worshipped by the least excellent of mankind. The votaries of this deity seek the body rather than the soul, and the ignorant rather than the wise, disdaining all that is honourable and lovely, and considering how they shall best satisfy their sensual necessities. […] [page 67] That Pandemic lover who loves rather the body than the soul is worthless, nor can be constant and consistent, since he has placed his affections on that which has no stability.

   a. 1822, Percy Bysshe Shelley, “The Banquet. Translated from Plato.”, in Richard Herne Shepherd, editor, The Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley: From the Original Editions […] In Two Volumes, volume II, London: Chatto and Windus, […], published 1888, →OCLC, pages 64 and 67

   The same distinction between an Uranian and a Pandemic Venus runs, as all those who have any acquaintance with the sculptures of the Greeks know, through their whole art. […] The latter [the Capitoline Venus] is the true Pandemic Venus, the perfect type of voluptuousness, soulless, animal beauty,— […]

   1840 January–June, “Shelley’s Translation of ‘The Banquet’ of Plato”, in The Monthly Chronicle; a National Journal of Politics, Literature, Science, and Art, volume V, London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans, […], →OCLC, pages 316–317

   The meeting of Venus with Phoebe distinguishes her roles: the business of Venus in her pandemic form is to ensure the immortality of the kinds. Her Garden has the voluptuousness necessary to ensure this, and this is 'the first seminarie / Of all things that are borne to live and die / According to their kindes.' [Quoting from Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene.]

   1967, Frank Kermode, “World Without End or Beginning”, in The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction (The Mary Flexner Lectures on the Humanities; 1965), New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →OCLC; new edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 2000, →ISBN, page 76

   For the complicated history of the Uranian and Pandemic Aphrodite of whom the Venus genetrix, the creative and vivifying force of nature, and Venus, the goddess of erotic passion, are Roman versions, see "Aphrodite" and "Venus" in Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities, […]. [Allen] Tate sees the attempt to reconcile the claims of the Uranian and Pandemic Aphrodite as the lifelong concern of [John] Keats.

   1969, Gerhard Joseph, “From Fatal Goddess to a God of Love”, in Tennysonian Love: The Strange Diagonal, Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press, →OCLC, footnote 8, page 141

   The Symposium [of Plato] presents strong and varied opinions on Aphrodite. Aristodemus reports Pausanias's speech on the Homeric and Hesiodic versions of the goddess's origins, and differentiates between the two loves and the two Aphrodites—the Pandemic one, daughter of Zeus, and the heavenly Uranic Aphrodite.

   2015, Nora Clark, “Aphrodite and Venus: Myth Timeless and Temporal”, in Aphrodite and Venus in Myth and Mimesis, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, →ISBN, page 30

   Synonyms: Pandemian · Antonyms: heavenly, spiritual, Uranian