English

Adjective

pandemic ‎(comparative more pandemic, superlative most pandemic)

1. Widespread; general.
2. (medicine) Epidemic over a wide geographical area and affecting a large proportion of the population.

   World War I might have continued indefinitely if not for a pandemic outbreak of influenza.

Translations

Noun

pandemic ‎(plural pandemics)

1. A pandemic disease; a disease that hits a wide geographical area and affects a large proportion of the population.
   • 2013 January 1, Katie L. Burke, “Ecological Dependency”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 1, page 64:

     In his first book since the 2008 essay collection Natural Acts: A Sidelong View of Science and Nature, David Quammen looks at the natural world from yet another angle: the search for the next human pandemic, what epidemiologists call “the next big one.”

Synonyms

• See also Wikisaurus:pandemic

Related terms

• endemic
• epidemic

Translations

See also

• epizootic
• enzootic
• plague
• Black Death