pestilential

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English pestilencial,^[2][3][4][5] borrowed from Medieval Latin pestilentiālis (“of an outbreak of plague, deadly, destructive”),^[6][3][5][7] which the OED finds frequently in British sources from the 13th century.^[6] The Medieval Latin adjective is formed from Latin pestilentia (“plague”), the source of pestilence,^[6][3][4] with the suffix -ālis.^[6][5] Etymonline derives the noun from pestilēns (“infected, unwholesome, noxious”), from pestis (“deadly disease, plague”),^[3] the source of pest.^[3] The OED compares Middle French pestilentiel (1534), Catalan pestilencial (about 1400), Spanish pestilencial and Italian pestilenziale (about 1300).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Carrying, producing or tending to produce epidemic disease; unhealthy: before 1398, in Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus.^[6][2] The Middle English Dictionary also records it of a season that favours epidemics and in fever pestilencial, an epidemic fever.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Through the 15th century the word stayed medical: from about 1425 it described what belonged to or was a symptom of the plague,^[6] and the Middle English Dictionary records it of carbuncles that showed bubonic plague and of a pill against epidemic fevers.^[2] From 1531, in Elyot's Boke Named the Gouernour, it was used figuratively of what was morally or socially harmful,^[6] a sense Etymonline dates to the 1530s.^[3] From 1697 it was applied to destructive animals, especially insects,^[6] and since 1833 in a weakened, colloquial sense, "annoying, troublesome".^[6][5] Johnson (1755) gave the medical senses first: of the nature of pestilence, infectious, contagious.^[8] The older pestilent went through the same changes.^[3]

Timeline

• before 1398 – carrying or producing epidemic disease.^[6][2]
• c. 1425 – of the nature of pestilence, symptomatic of plague.^[6]
• before 1475 – used against plague (obsolete by 1665).^[6][2]
• 1531 – morally or socially harmful, pernicious.^[6][3]
• 1697 – of an animal, especially an insect: harmful, destructive.^[6]
• 1833 – annoying, irritating.^[6]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Causing or tending to cause pestilence or epidemic disease; deadly: the pestilential air of the swamp.^[5][6][9]
2. Of, relating to or like a pestilence or plague: a pestilential fever.^[5][6][9]
3. Morally or socially harmful; pernicious.^[5][6]
4. Of animals, especially insects: destructive, being a plague.^[6][9]
5. (informal) Annoying, troublesome: those pestilential telephone salesmen.^[5][6][9]

Word family

• pestilentially
• pestilentialness
• antipestilential
• unpestilential

Related words

• pestilence
• pestilent
• pest
• pestiferous

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins