insidious

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Definitions (11)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. adjective Working or spreading harmfully in a subtle or stealthy manner: insidious rumors; an insidious disease.
  2. adjective Intended to entrap; treacherous: insidious misinformation.
  3. adjective Beguiling but harmful; alluring: insidious pleasures.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (3)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

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Examples

  • "The life at these old universities is very pleasant but very insidious, as I know from experience," he told me —  Sidney Percival Bunting
  • But in the way of Mr. Lincoln's success there stood still other opponents whose antagonism was mischievous, insidious, and unfair both in principle and in detail. —  Abraham Lincoln
  • What bothered me was something much more insidious, a vision of safety in dreary evenness, beyond which there is unmentionable danger. —  Buried Alive, The Biography of Janis Joplin
  • Mountain spirits or something more insidious, there was a joining that reasoning and common sense could not undo. —  Armageddon's Children
  • Nasty, insidious, and very popular in some quarters. —  The Eagle And The Nightingale
 

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Insidious has been looked up 1049 times, favorited 3 times, listed 68 times, and commented on 0 times.

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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. From Latin īnsidiōsus, from īnsidiae, ambush, from īnsidēre, to sit upon, lie in wait for : in-, in, on; see in-2 + sedēre, to sit; see sed- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. = French insidieux = Spanish Portuguese Italian insidioso, from Latin insidiosus, cunning, artful, deceitful, from insidiœ, a lying in wait, an ambush, artifice, stratagem, from insidere, literally sit in or upon: see insession.
 

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/ɪnˈsɪdɪəs/
by American Heritage

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