Word.ws English Dictionary

infest

/ɪnˈfɛst/

infest verb: to inhabit a place in unpleasantly large numbers; to plague, harass.

infest: to inhabit a place in unpleasantly large numbers; to plague, harass
Image: WikiPedant, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb

infest (third-person singular simple present infests, present participle infesting, simple past and past participle infested)

  1. (transitive) To inhabit a place in unpleasantly large numbers; to plague, harass.
    • Insects are infesting my basement!
    • Sir, my liege,
      Do not infest your mind with beating on
      The strangeness of this business; at pick’d leisure
      Which shall be shortly, I’ll resolve you,
      Which to you shall seem probable, of every
      These happen’d accidents; till when, be cheerful
      And think of each thing well.1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published...
  2. To invade a host plant or animal.

Adjective

infest (comparative more infest, superlative most infest)

  1. (obsolete) Mischievous; hurtful; harassing.
    • […] The swarme of scaled snakes
      Did make an yrksome noyce to heare, as she her tresses shakes.
      About her shoulders some did craule, some trayling downe her brest,
      Did hisse, and spit out poison greene, and spirt with tongues infest.1567, Ovid, “The Fourth Booke”, in Arthur Golding, transl., The XV. Bookes of P. Ouidius Naso, Entytuled Metamorphosis, […], London: […] Willyam Seres […], →OCLC, folio 51, recto
    • He stayed not t’advize, which way were best
      His foe t’assayle, or how himselfe to gard,
      But with fierce fury and with force infest
      Upon him ran […]1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 5

Noun

infest (uncountable)

  1. (obsolete) Hostility.
    • Like as a fire, the which in hollow cave
      Hath long bene underkept, and down supprest,
      With murmurous disdayne doth inly rave,
      And grudge, in so streight prison to be prest,
      At last breakes forth with furious infest,
      And strives to mount unto his native seat […]1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Book II, Canto Eleven, Stanza 32, Hackett, 2006, p. 191

infest meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

infest in Tamil

துயரளி, பரவித் தாக்கு

infest in Urdu

بکثرت ہونا, بھرا ہونا

infest in Bengali

উপদ্রব করা, ছেয়ে ফেলা, আক্রমণ করা

infest in Malayalam

ആക്രമിക്കുക, ശല്യപ്പെടുത്തുക, അലട്ടുക, ബാധിക്ക
More languagesFewer languages
infest in Kannada
ಮುತ್ತಿಕೊಂಡಿರು, ತುಂಬಿಕೊಂಡಿರು, ವ್ಯಾಪಿಸಿರು, ಆವರಿಸಿರು

Examples of infest in a sentence

  • The infested house needs a thorough cleansing before being inhabitable again.
  • Fiona rapidly discovered that the hotel was infested with bedbugs.
  • “A nanite cluster has infested the resort, consuming metal to self-replicate.

All 26 example sentences with infest

Synonyms of infest

Forms of infest

Verb
third-person singular presentinfests
present participleinfesting
past participleinfested
pastinfested
Adjective
comparativemore infest
superlativemost infest

Past tense of infest: infested

Origin of infest

From Middle English infesten, from Old French infester (“to infest”), from Latin īnfestō (“assail, molest”, verb), from īnfestus (“hostile”), of uncertain origin.

Words formed from infest

Words that rhyme with infest

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about infest

What does infest mean?
Infest means to inhabit a place in unpleasantly large numbers; to plague, harass.
What is infest in Tamil?
Infest in Tamil is துயரளி, பரவித் தாக்கு. See Infest meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is infest?
Infest can be a verb, an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce infest?
Infest is pronounced /ɪnˈfɛst/.
What is the past tense of infest?
The past tense of infest is infested.

Words near infest in the dictionary

  1. infertile
  2. infertilely
  3. infertileness
  4. infertilities
  5. infertility
  6. infest
  7. infestant
  8. infestants
  9. infestation
  10. infestations
  11. infested

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: infest (page history and authors); infest (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); infest (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Infest (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); infest (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); infest (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-infest.wav.

Cite this entry: “infest.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/infest. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.