(n.) Specifically, the disease known as the plague; hence, any contagious or infectious epidemic disease that is virulent and devastating.
(n.) Fig.: That which is pestilent, noxious, or pernicious to the moral character of great numbers.
Example Sentences:
(1) The policies of zero tolerance equip local and federal law-enforcement with increasingly autocratic powers of coercion and surveillance (the right to invade anybody's privacy, bend the rules of evidence, search barns, stop motorists, inspect bank records, tap phones) and spread the stain of moral pestilence to ever larger numbers of people assumed to be infected with reefer madness – anarchists and cheap Chinese labour at the turn of the 20th century, known homosexuals and suspected communists in the 1920s, hippies and anti-Vietnam war protesters in the 1960s, nowadays young black men sentenced to long-term imprisonment for possession of a few grams of short-term disembodiment.
(2) As in the metaphorical community in Camus' narrative, the struggle of individuals against the pestilence (including official obstruction) is imperative.
(3) Overpopulation brings decreases in economic and social progress; pestilence, famine, and fear; riots in the cities; sacrifices in personal comfort and safety; and a blow to world order.
(4) Again and again, Camus invokes some condition of well-being that has been forfeited, because the pestilence has taken hold.
(5) Both sets of MHC antigens serve to diversify immunity-repertoire gaps among individuals of a population, thus hampering epidemic spread of infection and providing a diversity of immunoreactivity that favours survival of at least some members of a population in the face of pestilence.
(6) The arguments for future massive crises due to population pressure (war, famine, and pestilence) are unconvincing.
(7) Pestilence may be stalking the planet, and the global financial system is still teetering on the edge of collapse, but there finally came a reason today for us all to cheer up: Britain is heading for a warm and dry summer.
(8) Still though, it's a tiny part of the demon's dermatology and as such, connected to all the other pestilence.
(9) For much of the intervening time, this paper has charted the continent's battles with poverty, famine, pestilence, corruption, drought, Aids and war.
(10) I do not know for how long this went on; I know that they cared for him and I know too that it was as though a golden harvest had been mowed down by a night's dark wind, or a pestilence had come into the trees, and it was unlucky even to mention his name or ask for news of him.
(11) They are not a disease or rats bringing pestilence.
(12) Innovations in disease prevention and patient care have been essential in the conquest of pestilence.
(13) Lord Dobbs, the Tory peer who wrote the TV political thriller House of Cards and who is promoting the bill, said a poll was needed because the EU had become a "pestilence".
(14) He could not stop the firm plunging into the red, reeling from attacks by computer hackers, the tsunami of 2011 and next-generation PlayStation delays, once complaining the company had been hit by "everything but toads and pestilence".
(15) In a letter to the Henley Standard he wrote: "The scriptures make it abundantly clear that a Christian nation that abandons its faith and acts contrary to the Gospel (and in naked breach of a coronation oath) will be beset by natural disasters such as storms, disease, pestilence and war.
(16) Current events once more arouse fears that the probable conclusion of our present growth era will unfortunately consist of widespread death from famine, pestilence, and social disruption of various kinds (perhaps involving nuclear devices).
(17) It has become a pestilence, it has become a poison in our political system.
(18) It is ironic that smallpox became an epidemic pestilence upon the growth of populations, yet it played a major role in preventing population growth until variolation and vaccination became common.
(19) As the four plants from which Valverde has been extracted (valerian, balm, passion-flower, and pestilence wort) have a reputation of being tranquilizing agents with spasmolytic effect, not only this effect needs to be demonstrated, but also sedative side effects and impairment of vigilance must be assessed to explore the risk for accident proneness.
(20) The shadow of Tony Blair brings with it memories of past wars and pestilences, of slick and spin.
Petulance
Definition:
(n.) Alt. of Petulancy
Example Sentences:
(1) "This speaks volumes of Hamilton and his petulant behaviour.
(2) One of the stories that took hold about the Klebolds after the shooting was that they were rich, and that Dylan’s violent behaviour was an extreme version of a spoilt child’s petulance.
(3) If we’re going to do this groupthink [a blanket ban] I think it would smack of petulance.” Jones added: “I stand by what Tony Abbott said: it [Q&A] is a lefty lynch mob.
(4) For a man who can clearly dance, he tends to deliver with a petulant shrug rather than an enthusiastic bang.
(5) One expects tension between a government and charities that tell inconvenient truths, but this has become a notoriously fearful, petulant, and intolerant administration.
(6) Toby Young called her a "petulant prima donna" in the Telegraph, while Observer critic Robert McCrum wrote that, as "an ebullient and pioneering feminist publisher from the 1970s [it's] hardly a surprise that she should find herself unresponsive to Roth's lifelong subject: the adventures of the ordinary sexual [American] man".
(7) His latest show of petulance drew boos from a crowd largely sympathetic to his antics up to that point.
(8) Stuart Lancaster and his coaching team sat looking down at the floor when Owen Farrell received a yellow card 10 minutes from the end for an act of petulance that in part explained why England have failed to live up to the high standard set in the pool of death, perhaps in the hope of a sink hole opening up and taking them away.
(9) Croatia have won 4-0 due in no small part to the idiocy of Alexandre Song, who was sent off in the first off for a preposterous show of petulance.
(10) Goaded, taunted and tormented by the prosecution, Pistorius was perhaps his own worst enemy during cross-examination, suffering surprising memory lapses and appearing evasive, agitated, petulant and self-contradictory.
(11) With great power comes great responsibility, so Facebook , and other large technology companies like Google, Amazon and Netflix need to be watched, critiqued and regulated if necessary, just like any other corporation or petulant adolescent.
(12) A petulant Henry cursed wretched foreigners and launched his own Brexit by leaving the church of Rome.
(13) But that is not possible for as long as Assad remains in power without any timetable for his departure, and for as long as his security forces murder, torture, gas and bomb his own people.” Nigel Dodds, the deputy DUP leader, indicated he was likely to back airstrikes and issued a vicious assault on the Labour leadership, saying: “It’s the petulant, putrid response of the irresponsible revolutionary bedsit they barely seem to have clambered out of.
(14) Chris Bryant, the former minister for Europe and chairman of the parliamentary all-party Russia group, said in a statement: "Having visited the trial and seen for myself the farcical way in which it was being conducted, with ludicrous trumped up charges and a petulant martinet of a prosecutor, it is entirely predictable that [Khodorkovsky] has been found guilty."
(15) Pakistan authorities counter claim that, emboldened by countrywide instability and foreign support, Baloch feudal leaders have petulantly demanded ever more royalties.
(16) They see the protesters as petulant malcontents and repeat Trump’s accusation that some of them are surely getting paid to demonstrate.
(17) I give all my customers five stars except Nicholas, whom I give one star out of petulance at his laziness.
(18) She was vulnerable, touching, kindly, loving, wholly lacking in malice, occasionally petulant in a good cause, and demonstrated her lack of talent for guile whenever she entered upon some well-intentioned intrigue.
(19) Obama has responded with emotions rarely seen during his stoical administration: anger at “hysterical” politicians back home, sorrow at the thought of sending US troops into another Middle East war he fears would be unwinnable, and petulance in the face of those who question his resolve.
(20) He not only represents everything a DJ shouldn't be – obnoxious, petulant, unfunny, and so over-fond of his own horrible, squeaky voice that entire half-hours can pass without any music being played – he represents everything that's wrong with this country.