pernicious

per·ni·cious

adj \pər-ˈni-shəs\

Definition of PERNICIOUS

1

: highly injurious or destructive : deadly

2

archaic : wicked

— per·ni·cious·ly adverb

— per·ni·cious·ness noun

Examples of PERNICIOUS

1. More pernicious still has been the acceptance of the author's controversial ideas by the general public.
2. the pernicious effects of jealousy
3. She thinks television has a pernicious influence on our children.
4. The notion that poll data are a legitimate form of news has to be one of the most pernicious tenets of late-twentieth-century American journalism … —Barbara Ehrenreich, Nation, 20 Nov. 1995
5. The more it [the Papacy] took part in the temporal conflicts with consistently pernicious result, the more impotent among the monarchs it revealed itself … —Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly, 1984
6. At its most pernicious, paper entrepreneurialism involves little more than imposing losses on others for the sake of short-term profits for the firm. —Robert B. Reich, Atlantic, March 1983

Origin of PERNICIOUS

Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin perniciosus, from pernicies destruction, from per- + nec-, nex violent death — more at noxious

First Known Use: 15th century

Related to PERNICIOUS

Synonyms: adverse, bad, baleful, baneful, damaging, dangerous, deleterious, detrimental, evil, hurtful, ill, injurious, mischievous, nocuous, noxious, harmful, prejudicial, wicked

Antonyms: anodyne, benign, harmless, hurtless, innocent, innocuous, inoffensive, safe

Related Words: hostile, inimical, unfriendly; contagious, deadly, infectious, infective, pestiferous, pestilent, pestilential, poisonous, venomous; insidious, menacing, ominous, sinister, threatening; hazardous, imperiling (or imperilling), jeopardizing, parlous, perilous, risky, unsafe, unsound; nasty, noisome, unhealthful, unhealthy, unwholesome; destructive, fatal, killer, lethal, malignant, ruinous

Near Antonyms: advantageous, beneficial, useful; favorable, good, propitious; curative, healthful, healthy, helpful, palliative, remedial, salubrious, salutary, wholesome; secure, sound; benignant; noncorrosive, nondestructive, nonfatal, noninfectious, nonlethal, nonpoisonous, nonpolluting, nontoxic, nonvenomous

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Synonym Discussion of PERNICIOUS

pernicious, baneful, noxious, deleterious, detrimental mean exceedingly harmful. pernicious implies irreparable harm done through evil or insidious corrupting or undermining <the claim that pornography has a pernicious effect on society>. baneful implies injury through poisoning or destroying <the baneful notion that discipline destroys creativity>. noxious applies to what is both offensive and injurious to the health of a body or mind <noxious chemical fumes>. deleterious applies to what has an often unsuspected harmful effect <a diet found to have deleterious effects>. detrimental implies obvious harmfulness to something specified <the detrimental effects of excessive drinking>.

Other Medicine Terms

analgesia, angina, diabetes, hepatitis, homeopathy, logorrhea, palliate, pandemic

Rhymes with PERNICIOUS

ambitious, auspicious, capricious, delicious, factitious, fictitious, flagitious, judicious, lubricious, malicious, nutritious, officious, propitious, pumiceous, seditious, sericeous, suspicious