pandemic

Etymology

From Late Latin pandēmus (“affecting all the people, public, general”), from Ancient Greek πᾶν (pân, “all”) (equivalent to English pan-) + δῆμος (dêmos, “the people”).

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɛmɪk

Adjective

pandemic (comparative more pandemic, superlative most pandemic)

1. Widespread; general.
2. (medicine) Epidemic over a wide geographical area and affecting a large proportion of the population.

   World War I might have continued indefinitely if not for a pandemic outbreak of influenza.

Noun

pandemic (plural pandemics)

1. A pandemic disease; a disease that hits a wide geographical area and affects a large proportion of the population.
   • 2013 January 1, Katie L. Burke, “Ecological Dependency”, in American Scientist‎, volume 101, number 1, page 64:

     In his first book since the 2008 essay collection Natural Acts: A Sidelong View of Science and Nature, David Quammen looks at the natural world from yet another angle: the search for the next human pandemic, what epidemiologists call “the next big one.”