Rife means widespread, and usually unwelcome. Corruption is rife, rife with errors, rumours were rife.
It is nearly always predicative — things are rife rather than rife things — and it nearly always describes something bad. Rife with takes the container: a document rife with mistakes. Note that the word is Old English and has narrowed: it once meant simply abundant, of good things as readily as bad.
1adjectiverifeWidespread, and usually unwelcome.
“Corruption was rife in the city's police force.”
synonyms: widespread, rampant
rife is a quality of prevalence.
Old English rife meant abundant or frequent, from a Germanic root about generosity. Its restriction to unwelcome things is a later narrowing.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₁reyp- — to tear (off), rip
Proto-Germanic
*rībaz — generous
Proto-West Germanic
*rīb
Old English
rīfe
Middle English
rife
English, today
rife
Built from
From Middle English rife, from Old English rīfe, rȳfe (“rife, abundant, frequent”), from Proto-West Germanic rīb, from Proto-Germanic rībaz (“generous”), from Proto-Indo-European h₁reyp- (“to tear (off), rip”). Cognate with West Frisian rju (“rife, much”), Dutch rijf (“abundant, copious”), Low German rive (“abundant, munificent”), Icelandic rífur (“rife, munificent”), Faroese ríviligur (“plentiful, abundant”), Faroese rívan (“abundantly”), Icelandic reifa (“to bestow”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA