Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The condition of being prevalent.
  • noun Medicine The total number of cases of a disease in a given population at a specific time.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state or quality of being prevalent.
  • noun Superior strength, influence, or efficacy; predominance.
  • noun General occurrence, practice, or reception; extensive existence or use: as, the prevalence of a custom or of a disease.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The quality or condition of being prevalent; superior strength, force, or influence; general existence, reception, or practice; wide extension

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The quality or condition of being prevalent; superior strength, force, or influence; general existence, reception, or practice; wide extension; as the prevalence of virtue, of a fashion, or of a disease; the prevalence of a rumor.
  • noun epidemiology The total number of cases of a disease in the given statistical population at a given time.
  • noun epidemiology The total number of cases of a disease in the given statistical population at a given time, divided by the number of individuals in the population.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a superiority in numbers or amount
  • noun (epidemiology) the ratio (for a given time period) of the number of occurrences of a disease or event to the number of units at risk in the population
  • noun the quality of prevailing generally; being widespread

Etymologies

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