Other forms: plagued, plagues, plaguing
A plague is a deadly disease that spreads across whole regions or continents. The Great Plague, an outbreak of plague, died of plague.
With a capital letter, the Plague usually means the Black Death of the fourteenth century, which killed perhaps a third of Europe. The disease is still with us and is treatable with antibiotics. A plague of something means an overwhelming infestation: a plague of locusts, a plague of rats. As a verb, to plague somebody is to trouble them persistently. Note avoid it like the plague.
1nounplagueA deadly disease that spreads across whole regions.
“The plague reached the town in about six weeks.”
2nounoverwhelmingAn overwhelming infestation.
“There was a plague of wasps that whole August.”
3verbtroubleTo trouble somebody persistently.
“The same fault plagued the design for about a decade.”
plague is a widespread affliction.
Latin plaga meant a blow or a wound — a plague was a stroke of misfortune before it was a named disease. The same word gives plaint and, at a distance, plangent, all from a root meaning to strike.
Proto-Indo-European
*pel- (beat)
Latin
plāga — blow, wound
Old French
plage
Middle English
plage
English, today
plague
Built from
From Middle English plage, borrowed from Old French plage, from Latin plāga (“blow, wound”), from plangō (“to strike”). Cognate with Middle Dutch plaghe (> Dutch plaag), plaghen (> Dutch plagen); Middle Low German plāge; Middle High German plāge, pflāge (> German Plage); plāgen (> German plagen); Swedish plåga; French plaie, Occitan plaga. a doublet of plaga. Displaced native Old English wōl.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in History & Eras