Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Tending to cause death or serious injury; deadly.
- adjective Causing great harm; destructive.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Quick.
- Having the property of destroying or being injurious; hurtful; destructive.
- Wicked; malicious; evil-hearted.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective rare Quick; swift (to burn).
- adjective Having the quality of injuring or killing; destructive; very mischievous; baleful; malicious; wicked.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Causing much
harm in asubtle way. - adjective Causing
death orinjury ;deadly .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective exceedingly harmful
- adjective working or spreading in a hidden and usually injurious way
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word pernicious.
Examples
-
It is time to undertake the reform of what I call a pernicious prejudice.
The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X Arthur L��on Imbert de Saint-Amand 1867
-
My eyes overflow, my dear Pauline; and Maitland will chide me for indulging what he calls a pernicious sensibility.
-
Progressives are too eager to believe that national health care will make it possible to expand coverage while reducing costs — reducing deficits, even! — apparently because all those costs are in pernicious “overhead,” which seems to be joining that political holy trinity “waste, fraud, and abuse.”
-
Presumably, what makes political networks so pernicious is not their personal sex life, but the very real damage they do to their states in the form of myopic and self-aggrandizing lawmaking, incompetent appointees, and a perversion of our democratic institutions.
-
The most pernicious is Proposition 25, which is being sold as a good government measure to end the state's annual fiscal follies and pass a budget on time.
-
It skews consumption and investment in pernicious ways.
Matthew Yglesias » The High Cost of Subsidized Homeownership 2010
-
Lane suggests that idea of dramatizing this tale — “a low-grade musing on atrocity, garnished with erotic titillation” — was “pernicious from the start.”
-
Yet more pernicious is the result when that worldview is encoded, unquestioned, systemic.
Should Women Rule? 2008
-
Yet more pernicious is the result when that worldview is encoded, unquestioned, systemic.
Should Women Rule? 2008
-
Lane suggests that idea of dramatizing this tale — “a low-grade musing on atrocity, garnished with erotic titillation” — was “pernicious from the start.”
meeralee commented on the word pernicious
On this list because I always think it has the connotation of insidiousness, which it doesn't really.
February 28, 2007
seanahan commented on the word pernicious
Used to describe Knids.
March 1, 2007
slumry commented on the word pernicious
"working or spreading in a hidden and usually injurious way" In this sense, I think it does have the connotation of insidiousness.
July 10, 2007
meeralee commented on the word pernicious
Then perhaps I should remove it. :-) Thanks, slumry!
July 23, 2007
mollusque commented on the word pernicious
I thought Knids were vermicious.
October 5, 2009
shanvrolijk commented on the word pernicious
"In sum, racial categories now in use are based on a convoluted and often pernicious history, including much purposefully created misinformation."
Source: What Both the Left and Right Get Wrong About Race
January 22, 2018