Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Prevalent in or limited to a particular locality, region, or people.
  • adjective Native to or limited to a certain region.
  • adjective Common in or inherent to an enterprise or situation.
  • noun An endemic plant or animal.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In phytogeography, properly, confined to a particular region, whether indigenous or not: sometimes confused with indigenous.
  • Peculiar to a people or nation, or to the residents of a particular locality: chiefly applied to diseases.
  • In phytogeography and zoögeog., peculiar to and characteristic of a locality or region, as a plant or an animal; indigenous or autochthonous in some region, and not elsewhere.
  • noun A prevalence of endemic disease.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective (Med.) Peculiar to a district or particular locality, or class of persons.
  • adjective Belonging or native to a particular people or country; native as distinguished from introduced or naturalized; hence, regularly or ordinarily occurring in a given region; local; ; -- often distinguished from exotic.
  • noun (Med.) An endemic disease.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Native to a particular area or culture; originating where it occurs.
  • adjective Peculiar to a particular area or region; not found in other places.
  • adjective Prevalent in a particular area or region.
  • noun An individual or species that is endemic to a region.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective of or relating to a disease (or anything resembling a disease) constantly present to greater or lesser extent in a particular locality
  • noun a plant that is native to a certain limited area
  • adjective native to or confined to a certain region
  • noun a disease that is constantly present to a greater or lesser degree in people of a certain class or in people living in a particular location
  • adjective originating where it is found

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Greek endēmos, native, endemic : en-, in; see en– + dēmos, people; see dā- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek ἐν (en, "in") + δῆμος (dēmos, "people"). Possibly via ἔνδημος (endēmos) and/or French endémique.

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Examples

  • Another endemic is the golden Cattleya orchid, (Cattleya aurea), that is sympatric in the upper Sinú with the gigas Cattleya orchid, (Cattleya warscewickzii), showing the contact zone between Magdalena Medio and Chocó-Darién; the upper Sinú is the only place where the naturally occurring hybrid, the spectacular (Cattleya X hardyana) has been found.

    Sinú Valley dry forests 2008

  • The charges come as Justice Department civil rights division lawyers, at the invitation of New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, conduct a broader probe of the New Orleans Police Department to root out what he called endemic corruption of a department plagued by incompetence long before Katrina.

    Police Officers Charged Over Post-Katrina Deaths 2010

  • A civil liberties group surveyed 37 different countries and named Britain, along with Russia, China, Malaysia and Singapore as countries that practice what it terms endemic surveillance against individuals.

    CNN Transcript Nov 2, 2006 2006

  • She said that everyone at FAMU -- from administrators, to students, to alumni -- and other schools need to work together to stop hazing, which she called endemic to a larger cultural issue.

    CNN.com 2011

  • The news reporting on this blog (especially the back story) is much more robust than most of the drivel reported by the electronic media, and it never contains the pro-establishment spin endemic to the Oregonian and (to a lesser extent) the Tribune and Willy Week.

    Just don't call me Chief (Jack Bog's Blog) 2009

  • Unfortunately, a pothole perspective that seems almost endemic is bringing Sioux Falls far too close to falling off a cliff.

    A Progressive on the Prairie » Suffering from pothole perspective » Print 2010

  • Unfortunately, a pothole perspective that seems almost endemic is bringing Sioux Falls far too close to falling off a cliff.

    Suffering from pothole perspective « A Progressive on the Prairie 2010

  • Certain endemic diseases seemed to be connected with certain geographical locations and weather patterns.

    Pestilence and Headcolds: Encountering Illness in Colonial Mexico 2008

  • Isolating mechanisms and modes of speciation in endemic angiosperms of the Juan Fernandez Islands.

    Juan Fernández Islands temperate forests 2007

  • But many of those problems remain endemic to the Arab world.

    The Roots of Our Discontent 2002

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