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pernicious

UK/pəˈnɪʃəs/US/pɚˈnɪʃəs/
adjectiveC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,193 of 15,258neutral

Pernicious means doing serious harm in a quiet gradual way. A pernicious influence, pernicious nonsense, pernicious effects.

The slowness is what the word adds: something pernicious does its damage before anybody notices. In medicine, pernicious anaemia was named when it was untreatable and reliably fatal, which it no longer is.

Definitions of pernicious

  1. 1adjectiveperniciousDoing serious harm in a quiet gradual way.C1

    “Gossip can have a pernicious effect on a small office.”

pernicious is a quality.

Where it comes from

Latin perniciosus means destructive, from pernicies, ruin, from per plus nex, death.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *per-

  2. Latin

    perniciōsus — destructive

  3. Old French

    pernicios

  4. English, today

    pernicious

Built from

  • perniciēs · Latin — destruction
  • per · Latin — through
  • nex · Latin — slaughter, death

From Middle English -, from Old French pernicios, from Latin perniciōsus (“destructive”), from perniciēs (“destruction”), from per (“through”) + nex (“slaughter, death”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

pernicious in the wild

  • Murphy for their pioneering work on pernicious anemia.

    George Minot

  • Due to a higher risk of stomach cancer, those with pernicious anemia should be checked regularly for this.

    Pernicious anemia

  • The term "pernicious" means "deadly", and this term came into use because, before the availability of treatment, the disease was often fatal.

    Pernicious anemia

  • Type A gastritis primarily affects the fundus (body) of the stomach and is more common with pernicious anemia.

    Atrophic gastritis

  • Nicknamed Betsie, she had suffered from pernicious anemia since birth.

    Betsie ten Boom

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.