Definitions

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

  • adjective Having the quality or tendency to pervade or permeate.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Tending or having power to pervade.

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

  • adjective Tending to pervade, or having power to spread throughout; of a pervading quality.

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

  • adjective Manifested throughout; pervading, permeating, penetrating or affecting everything.

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

  • adjective spreading or spread throughout

Etymologies

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

[From Latin pervāsus, past participle of pervādere, to pervade; see pervade.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin pervāsus, from pervādō ("spread through, pervade"), from per ("through") + vādō ("go, walk").

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Examples

  • The child abuse investigators say they found enough evidence of multiple child abuse situations, of what they called a pervasive pattern of child sexual abuse on that ranch, that they needed to get all of the children off, and that's what they've done -- Don.

    CNN Transcript Apr 23, 2008 2008

  • So how can the government, without what they call the pervasive and brooding commitment to secularism, which they think would be wrong, become necessarily involved because of our traditions, but not go too far?

    Reading the transcript of the oral argument in the Ten Commandments case. Ann Althouse 2005

  • He blamed a culture of political correctness, which he described as pervasive even through the military.

    Hotline On Call 2010

  • The Secretary General of Ijaw Youth Council, Engr. Udengs Eradiri, who spoke to Vanguard yesterday in Yenagoa, lamented what he described as the pervasive poverty in the predominantly riverine state due to the alleged manipulation of some few in the state treasury department.

    Vanguard News 2009

  • John Payton, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc., which filed a brief supporting the city, said the case, Ricci v. DeStefano, No. 07-1428, must be understood against the backdrop of what he described as pervasive racial discrimination in firefighting and the pitfalls of thinking that a test can capture the qualities needed for leadership in life-or-death situations.

    news | GT | http://www.gadsdentimes.com 2009

  • John Payton, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc., which filed a brief supporting the city, said the case, Ricci v. DeStefano, No. 07-1428, must be understood against the backdrop of what he described as pervasive racial discrimination in firefighting and the pitfalls of thinking that a test can capture the qualities needed for leadership in life-or-death situations.

    news | OS | http://www.ocala.com 2009

  • Though it didn't quantify the effect of what it called pervasive misapplication of accounting rules on the company's books, the report by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight cited one instance in 1998 where the company inappropriately deferred $200 million of estimated expenses, which enabled management to receive full annual bonuses.

    Doug Ross @ Journal directorblue 2008

  • Reply to this tom smith how pervasive is sexual harassment of women in Egypt? is it something that happens in public and regularly?

    Global Voices in English » Egypt: Bloggers call for a fun-filled harassment-free Eid 2009

  • So pervasive is the leftist atmosphere that ambitious people in other industries and in many urban settings have learned that to even express curiosity about conservatism instead of accepting the crudest of caricatures of the political opposition might stigmatize them as unpardonably stupid and unfit for their high status jobs.

    UK Met office pushes reset button on CRU data. - Moe_Lane’s blog - RedState 2009

  • Please note how pervasive is the virus of pacifism.

    California Reality, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009

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