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pestilential, a.|pɛstɪˈlɛnʃəl|
Also 5–6 -cial.
[ad. med.L. pestilentiāl-is; also in F. pestilentiel (1549 in Hatz.-Darm.), It. † pestilenziale, -tiale (Florio), f. L. pestilentia pestilence: see -al1.]
1. Producing or tending to produce pestilence or epidemic; noxious to life or health; pestiferous.
1398Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xi. i. (Bodl. MS.), Nyȝnes of careyns and of mareis for bi corrupcion þereof aier is infecte and roted and ymade pestilencial. 1597A. M. tr. Guillemeau's Fr. Chirurg. 18/1 The matter beinge venomous or pestilentialle. 1646Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. iii. vii. 119 Plagues or pestilentiall Atomes have beene conveyed in the ayre from different Regions. 1663Cowley Garden v, All th Uncleanness which does drown In Pestilential Clouds a populous Town. 1727Swift What passed in London Wks. 1755 III i. 187 A pestilential malignancy in the air, occasioned by the comet. 1796Morse Amer. Geog. II. 417 The Campagna di Roma..is now almost pestilential. 1882‘Ouida’ Maremma I. 174 In the sultry pestilential mists of a summer day in Maremma.
†b. Said of pernicious animals. Obs.
1697Dryden Virg. Georg. iii. 636 Snakes..of pestilential Kind To Sheep and Oxen, and the painful Hind.
2. Of the nature of or pertaining to pestilence or infectious and deadly disease; spec. of the nature of or pertaining to bubonic plague. † pestilential fever, old name of typhus fever (Syd. Soc. Lex.).
1530Palsgr. 157 Vne charboncle, a carboncle, a sore pestylenciall. a1548Hall Chron., Hen. IV 26 In this sommer, the Pestilenciall plage..infected the Citie of London and the countrei round about. 1612Woodall Surg. Mate Wks. (1653) 76 Antimonium..is good against pestilential fevers in their beginning. 1671Salmon Syn. Med. iii. xxii. 400 The Figs open the Lungs,..ripen Pestilential tumours. 1704J. Harris Lex. Techn. I, Pestilential Fever..differs from the Plague, as a Species or sort from the Genus or Kind; because a Pestilence may sometimes happen without a Feaver. 1706Phillips, Pestilential Bubo, a Plague-sore, or Botch. 1781Gibbon Decl. & F. lvi. (1869) III. 373 That camp was soon afflicted with a pestilential disease. 1789W. Buchan Dom. Med. xx. (1790) 195 Of the malignant, putrid, or spotted fever. This may be called the pestilential fever of Europe, as in many of its symptoms it bears a great resemblance to that dreadful disease the plague. 1807–26S. Cooper First Lines Surg. (ed. 5) 69 The carbuncle of the plague is called symptomatic or pestilential.
†b. Used as a specific against plague or pestilence. Obs.
1460–70Bk. Quintessence 24 Vse in þe dayes two or þre smale pelotis pestilenciales in oure 5 essencia.
†c. Infected with plague or pestilence; plague-stricken. Obs.
1568G. Skeyne The Pest (1860) 32 Quhasoeuir findis tham seltis pestilenciall, incontinent tak ane iniectione.
3. Morally baneful or pernicious.
1531Elyot Gov. iii. vi, Corrupted with pestilenciall auarice or ambicion. 1651Jer. Taylor Serm. for Year i. iii. 34 So pestilential, so infectious a thing is sin, that it scatters the poison of its breath to all the neighbourhood. 1782Priestley Corrupt. Chr. II. ix. 187 John..pronounced it to be a pestilential..doctrine. 1857Buckle Civiliz. I. xiii. 725 Bossuet had been taught that Mohammedanism is a pestilential heresy.
†4. Pestilential Doctors, a humorous appellation of those Doctors of Divinity who were created at Oxford, without performance of Acts, during the visitation of the Plague. Obs.
After the appellation Royal Doctors with which those were dignified who were similarly created at the King's visit.
1654Gataker Disc. Apol. 42 If ever I took the Degree of Doctor [of Divinity], I would so do it, as that I would not be styled either a Royal, or a Pestilential Doctor; which by-names were in common speech given unto those that had taken that Degree, at either of those times.
Hence pestiˈlentially adv., after the manner of a pestilence; pestiˈlentialness (Bailey, vol. II, 1727).
1643Tuckney Balme of G. 35 Englands present disease..is grown pestilentially malignant. 1830Fraser's Mag. II. 417 Useless, nay, pestilentially unclean.
Add:[3.] b. In weakened use (colloq): annoying, irritating, ‘confounded’. Cf. *pestiferous a. 2.
1885W. S. Gilbert Mikado 9 There's the pestilential nuisances who write for autographs... They'd none of 'em be missed—they'd none of 'em be missed! 1911Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 22 Apr. 4/2 The Cranbrook Herald says that the ‘pestilential knocker’ has been doing his best to injure the Southeast Kootenay by misrepresenting the condition of a party of English settlers who have purchased land in the Bayned Lake district. 1960Times 8 Jan. 11/4 A sneeze may still mean the onset of a pestilential cold in the head. 1982Financial Times 21 June 12/1 The Militant Tendency is undoubtedly an infiltrationist group which has quite different aims from the bulk of the Labour Party. Mr Foot described it some time ago as a ‘pestilential nuisance’. |
