Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Pestilent. See Synonyms at poisonous.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Producing or tending to produce infectious disease; pestiferous.
- Mischievous; pernicious; destructive.
- Partaking of the nature of pestilence or any infectious and deadly disease: as, a pestilential fever. See fever. Synonyms Malignant, noxious, deadly.
Wiktionary
- adj. Producing pestilence or plague; pestilent
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Having the nature or qualities of a pestilence.
- adj. Hence: Mischievous; noxious; pernicious; morally destructive.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. likely to spread and cause an epidemic disease
Examples
“In comments on his table, Potter says that he has doubtless included mention of many plagues which, although described under that name, are probably a dissimilar disease, writers having applied the terms pestilential and pestilent in a generic sense to diseases specifically different.”
“It is the spirit which incarcerates unfortunate prisoners of honorable warfare in pestilential holds, stifles them with thirst, starvation, diseased meats, if not slow poisons, and plants tons of gunpowder under them that, in case of inability to retain them, they might be blown to atoms at the mere touch of a match.”
“18.3 In comments on his table, Potter says that he has doubtless included mention of many plagues which, although described under that name, are probably a dissimilar disease, writers having applied the terms pestilential and pestilent in a generic sense to diseases specifically different.”
“Like many other men, North or South, they were brave enough when it came to gunpowder, but were quickly vanquished at the idea of pestilential disease.”
Chasing an Iron Horse Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War
“At every fair-time "a kind of pestilential fever" raged, so that at least 400 folk were buried there annually during the five or six weeks of the market.”
On the Spanish Main Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien.
“Eck's comments on the "pestilential" errors of Wiclif and Hus condemned by the Council of Constance was met by the reply, that, so far as the position of the Hussites was concerned, there were among them many who were "very Christian and evangelical".”
“Certain it is, that after he had left the island called La Mona, and when he was approaching the island of San Juan, a drowsiness, which Las Casas calls "pestilential," but which might reasonably be attributed to the privations, cares, and anxieties which the admiral had now undergone for many months, seized upon him, and entirely deprived him for a time of the use of his senses.”
“If they want to know their first task, as coaching motivator and quarterback leader, it's to eradicate pestilential losses like this one.”
The Washington Post: For the NFL's worst, it always gets better when they play the Redskins
“There is a law Section 1170 that states that the Board of Health and Sanitation of the City of New York may remove from the public arena any person sick with any contagious, pestilential, or infectious disease.”
“What was remarkable was that the Allies having spent nearly six years fighting to destroy this pestilential horror in the heart of Europe, then turned round and assisted the German people to rebuild their society and their prosperity.”
The Guardian: Athens backs villagers' fight for German compensation over 1944 SS massacre
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘pestilential’.
seanahan The improv group I was in for a while in college used this as an enunciation exercise. Aug 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi To sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock,
In a pestilential prison, with a life-long lock,
Awaiting the sensation of a short sharp shock,
From a cheap and chippy chopper on a big black block!
-- W.S. Gilbert, The Mikado Aug 20, 2008