pandemic
adjective
- global epidemic of infectious disease
noun
- epidemic of infectious disease that has spread across a large region with global health impact
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /pænˈdɛmɪk/
adj
Etymology: See Pandemic.
- Alternative 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.”).
“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.]”
noun
Etymology: From Ancient Greek πάνδημος (pándēmos, “of or belonging to all the people, public”) + English -ic (suffix forming adjectives from nouns with the sense ‘of or pertaining to’). πάνδημος is derived from παν- (pan-, prefix meaning ‘all, every’) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂- (“to protect, shepherd”)) + δῆμος (dêmos, “the common people; free citizens, sovereign people”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *deh₂- (“to divide, share”)). Compare Late Latin pandēmus (“affecting all the people, general, public”).
- A pandemic disease; a disease that affects a wide geographical area and a large proportion of the population.
“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.”
“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.”
- A pandemic disease; a disease that affects a wide geographical area and a large proportion of the population.