epidemic

Pluralepidemics

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A widespread disease that affects large numbers of people within a population.

   The cholera epidemic swept through the city within a few weeks.

   Health officials declared an epidemic after reported cases suddenly doubled.

   Similaroutbreak, plague

   Note

   Greek supplies the image behind the word: epi, "upon," and dēmos, "people." An epidemic is a disease that falls upon a whole population at once. The word reached English through French épidémique and Medieval Latin epidēmia. In everyday use the disease usually comes first, as in a cholera epidemic or a flu epidemic, with the noun naming the illness in its widespread, community-wide form.

2. 2
   adjective

   Relating to or characteristic of a disease that spreads widely through a human population.

   The illness spread at epidemic speed through the crowded refugee camp.

   Officials feared the outbreak had already grown epidemic.

   Similarwidespread, rampant

3. 3
   nouncolloquialcountable

   A sharp increase in how often something harmful occurs.

   Experts warn of a growing epidemic of loneliness among older adults.

   The neighborhood saw an epidemic of break-ins last summer.

   Similarrash, spate, wave, plague, upsurge

   Note

   The medical word stretched to cover any harm that suddenly seems to be everywhere. It usually takes the frame an epidemic of: an epidemic of loneliness, in the phrase of US surgeon general Vivek Murthy, or an epidemic of dangerous driving. Because it borrows the alarm of disease, it reads as rhetoric, and a headline may present it as a campaigner's claim rather than the writer's own description.

4. 4
   adjectivefiguratively

   Spreading rapidly and uncontrollably through a group, in a damaging way.

   Misinformation spread at an epidemic pace across social media.

   Corruption had become epidemic within the department.

   Similarwidespread, common, prevalent, pervasive, rife

   Note

   The adjective grades freely: a disease can be very epidemic. Gerald F. Pyle's The Diffusion of Influenza (1986) asks whether patterns seem more epidemic than endemic, setting it against the steady, ever-present kind. Its stock phrase is "of epidemic proportions." The phrase also works in the negative to deflate alarm, as when a small rise is called hardly a change of epidemic proportions.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   An outbreak in which a disease occurs in a population more often than normally expected during a given period.

   The epidemic peaked about three weeks after the first reported cases.

   Epidemiologists traced the epidemic to a contaminated water supply.

   Similaroutbreak

   Note

   Epidemiologists measure it against an expectation, not a head count. An epidemic is a frequency clearly above the baseline for that place and period. A handful of cases of a rare disease can therefore qualify, while many cases of a routine one may not. It is also an event with a shape: an outbreak, a rise, then a stretch of high prevalence. That is why one can be traced to a source or said to peak.

6. 6
   nounfigurativelycountable

   The rapid spread of an idea or belief through a population.

   A genuine epidemic of conspiracy theories swept across the internet.

   The fashion became an epidemic, with everyone copying the same style.

   Similarcraze, wave, rash

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