pest
/pest/
Học thuậtThân thiện
Definition
- Noun:
- A destructive insect or animal: An unwanted organism that damages plants, food supplies, or livestock.
- An annoying person: Someone who causes persistent irritation or bothers others.
- A deadly epidemic disease: A serious, often fatal, infectious disease, especially one like bubonic plague.
Examples of Usage
- Noun (Destructive animal/insect):
- Farmers must control pests to protect their crops.
- Aphids are common pests in rose gardens.
- Noun (Annoying person):
- The child was being a pest, constantly asking questions.
- Stop being such a pest and let me work!
- Noun (Disease):
- The bubonic pest ravaged Europe in the 14th century. (This usage is now rare and formal; "plague" is more common.)
Advanced Usage
- "Pest control": The regulation or management of a species defined as a pest.
- The building requires regular pest control services.
- "Public pest": A person who is a general nuisance to society.
- The corrupt official was denounced as a public pest.
Variants and Related Words
- Pester (verb): To annoy someone with frequent or persistent requests or interruptions.
- The children pestered their parents for ice cream.
- Pestilence (noun): A fatal epidemic disease, especially bubonic plague. (This is a more formal/literary synonym for the disease meaning).
- Ancient texts often speak of war and pestilence.
- Pestilential (adjective): Causing annoyance or likened to a plague; also, relating to pestilence.
- The pestilential mosquitoes ruined the camping trip.
Synonyms
- Nuisance: A person, thing, or circumstance causing inconvenience or annoyance.
- Vermin: Wild animals or insects that are believed to be harmful to crops, farm animals, or which carry disease.
- Blight: A thing that spoils or damages something. (Often used for plant diseases but can be metaphorical).
- Annoyance: The feeling or state of being annoyed.
Related Phrases
- Pest of society: A person considered harmful to the community.
- The fraudster was described as a pest of society.
Related Idioms
- "Feel like a pest": To feel that one is being annoying or bothersome.
- I don't want to call again and feel like a pest.
Noun
- any unwanted and destructive insect or other animal that attacks food or crops or livestock etc.
- he sprayed the garden to get rid of pests
- many pests have developed resistance to the common pesticides
- a persistently annoying person
- any epidemic disease with a high death rate
- a serious (sometimes fatal) infection of rodents caused by Yersinia pestis and accidentally transmitted to humans by the bite of a flea that has bitten an infected animal