epidemic disease

/ˌˈɛpəˌdɛmɪk dəˌziz/

Other forms: epidemic diseases

Definitions of epidemic disease

1. noun

   any infectious disease that develops and spreads rapidly to many people
   types:

   pest, pestilence, plague

   any epidemic disease with a high death rate

   pest, pestilence, pestis, plague

   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

   Bornholm disease, diaphragmatic pleurisy, epidemic myalgia, epidemic pleurodynia, myosis

   an acute infectious disease occurring in epidemic form and featuring paroxysms of pain (usually in the chest)

   bubonic plague, glandular plague, pestis bubonica

   the most common form of the plague in humans; characterized by chills, prostration, delirium and the formation of buboes in the armpits and groin; does not spread from person to person

   plague pneumonia, pneumonic plague, pulmonic plague

   a rapidly progressive and frequently fatal form of the plague that can spread through the air from person to person; characterized by lung involvement with chill, bloody expectoration and high fever

   septicemic plague

   an especially dangerous and generally fatal form of the plague in which infecting organisms invade the bloodstream; does not spread from person to person

   type of:

   infectious disease

   a disease transmitted only by a specific kind of contact