pest
/pɛst//pɛst/
pest noun: a pestilence, i.e. a deadly epidemic, a deadly plague.
Noun
pest (plural pests)
- A pestilence, i.e. a deadly epidemic, a deadly plague.
- From the perspective of traditional Chinese culture, pests and famines are reflections of the current administration’s lack of moral values and deviation from divine will. The head of the administration (the emperor in the past) would then issue an edict to sincerely repent and correct his...2020 March 24, Qing Zhu, Zhang Ming, “Amid Coronavirus Pandemic, China Faces Plague of Locusts”, in Minghui
- Any destructive insect that attacks crops or livestock; an agricultural pest.
- An annoying person, a nuisance.
- An animal regarded as a nuisance, destructive, or a parasite, vermin.
- An invasive weed.
Proper noun capitalized: Pest
Pest
- One of the originally three separate cities that were united in 1873 to become the Hungarian capital, Budapest.
- The corresponding part of the current-day city of Budapest, on the eastern side of the Danube.
- On a drizzly mid-January evening, I stood at the arches of the wall of Buda Castle, overlooking the Danube and the 19th-century Chain Bridge that links Buda with Pest.2014 January 30, Seth Kugel, “Wintertime Bargains in Budapest”, in The New York Times
- A county in central Hungary, surrounding Budapest.
pest meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Telugu
pest in Tamil
- பீடை, தீய்பூச்சி, தீம்பூச்சி, தொல்லையுயிரி, நோயுயிரி, நோய்ப்பூச்சி
pest in Urdu
- فتنہ, طاعون, وبا, کیڑے, گھاس پھوس
pest in Bengali
- মড়ক, বালাই, কণ্টক, মারাত্মক বিষয়, মহামারী, আপদ্
pest in Telugu
- తెగులు
More languagesFewer languages
- pest in Malayalam
- കീടം kīṭaṁ
- pest in Kannada
- ಹಾನಿಕಾರಕ ಕೀಟ, ರೋಗ ಕೀಟ, ಪೀಡೆ, ಅನಿಷ್ಟ
- pest in Tagalog
- angol, taping
- pest in Indonesian
- pes
- pest in Persian
- آفت āfat, آگفت āgaft
Examples of pest in a sentence
- The garden snail, a blue-blooded land animal, is sometimes seen as food, sometimes as pest.
- Wooden structures in the tropics must be chemically treated to repel xylotomous pests.
- My little brother is such a pest, I swear.
Synonyms of pest
Forms of pest
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | pests |
| Proper noun | |
| alternative form (obsolete) | Pesth |
Origin of pest
In the 16th century in the sense of "pestilence" and specifically bubonic plague from Middle French peste (“pestilence”) (whence French peste). The other meanings are recorded soon after. Ultimately from Latin pestis.
From Hungarian Pest, ultimately from Old Church Slavonic пещь (peštĭ, “furnace, oven”). Compare German Ofen (“Buda”, literally “oven”).
Words formed from pest
Phrases with pest
Words that rhyme with pest
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- attest
- guest
- quest
- bequest
- distressed
- prest
- request
- revest
- west
- wrest
- zest
- contest
- depressed
- dressed
- gest
- impressed
- jest
- suggest
- acid test
- best
- celeste
- divest
- ingest
- molest
- North West
- northwest
- possessed
- pressed
- professed
- southwest
- -cest
- addressed
- behest
- compressed
- congest
- detest
- fest
- infest
- lest
- obsessed
- pretest
- processed
- repressed
- rest.
- stressed
- tressed
- unrest
- unstressed
Questions about pest
- What does pest mean?
- Pest means a pestilence, i.e. a deadly epidemic, a deadly plague.
- What is pest in Tamil?
- Pest in Tamil is பீடை, தீய்பூச்சி, தீம்பூச்சி. See Pest meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is pest?
- Pest can be a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce pest?
- Pest is pronounced /pɛst/ (UK).
- What is the plural of pest?
- The plural of pest is pests.
Words near pest in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: pest (page history and authors); Pest (page history and authors); pest (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); pest (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); pest (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); pest (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); കീടം (Malayalam) (page history and authors); pest (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-pest.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-pest.wav.
Cite this entry: “pest.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pest. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.