Other forms: pestilences
A pestilence is a deadly disease that sweeps through a population. A great pestilence, war and pestilence, the pestilence spread.
It is an old word for what is now called an epidemic, and it belongs to the Bible and to chronicles. It is one of the four horsemen in Revelation as usually named, alongside war, famine and death, and it carries a sense of judgement that epidemic does not.
1nounpestilenceA deadly disease that sweeps through a population.
“In the Middle Ages, war and pestilence killed millions across Europe.”
pestilence is a disease.
Latin pestilentia comes from pestis, a plague or destruction. Pest and pesticide are relatives.
Latin
pestilentia — plague
English, today
pestilence
Built from
From Middle English -, from Old French -, from Latin pestilentia (“plague”), from pestilens (“infected, unwholesome, noxious”); equivalent to pestilent + ence.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire