Epidemics

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Widespread occurrences of infectious diseases that affect large groups of people within a specific region
2. Events where infectious diseases spread rapidly and extensively among a particular population in a defined area
3. Outbreaks marked by a sudden and large increase in cases of disease within a community or region

Etymology: Hippocrates is the earliest source of the Greek root behind this word, but the surprising part is what the Greeks meant by it. "Epidēmios" was built from "epi" ("upon") and "dēmos" ("people"), so it described something that fell upon a population, or, in the sense of a person, someone who was "among the people," a resident or sojourner rather than a native. Its medical sense of a disease visiting a whole community was a later extension of that notion of something coming down on the people. The word reached English through French, which had "épidémique" and "épidémie," and the Medieval Latin "epidēmia" that scholars took from Late Latin. The modern noun "epidemic" thus carries a Greek description of a visitation, filtered through centuries of Latin and French scholarship before it became an English term for disease. The plural "epidemics" is simply the regular form of "epidemic," so it names several separate outbreaks of this kind, each one a case of illness falling upon a community.

Synonyms: outbreaks, pandemics

Antonyms: endemic, stability