What is pestilence? This, according to Ozhegov’s dictionary, is an epidemic, total death. The word is ambiguous. He named, for example, a computer game created in 2005. The meaning of the word "pestilence" depends on its spelling. So, if each letter in it is capitalized, then this is an abbreviation that stands for Marine Defense Region.
The surname Mor carried many outstanding personalities. Among them are the Dutch painter, and the German artist, and the English philosopher, and the Danish mathematician. But in this article we’ll not talk about them, but about a noun to which we can pick up synonyms such as chaff, plague, general death, as well as its homonyms and derivatives.
Epidemic
So, pestilence is a phenomenon characterized by mass mortality. A synonym for this word is an epidemic. Thus, it can be said that pestilence is an infectious disease that progresses in space and time. The presence of an epidemic is indicated when the number of cases in a certain territory is at least 5%. “Justinian's plague”, “Black death”, “Spanish flu” - all these terms are known in history as terrible phenomena, accompanied by high mortality. And far from always they can be replaced by a word, the meaning of which is considered in this article.
Pestilence is a concept that is more often used in relation to animals, fish. And in such cases, the nouns "case", "death" are synonyms for it.
Examples:
- Mass pestilence of cattle was observed in several American states.
- The reasons for the plague of fish in the Volga have not been established.
But there is in history a term denoting general mortality of people, formed from the word "pestilence" and almost not subject to replacement.
Famine
This phenomenon took place in the early thirties in the USSR. Synonyms of the word "famine" - its morphological components. That is, "pestilence" and "hunger." The statistics give scary figures: about 100 thousand people died, over 40 million were injured. The cause of the famine is, according to researchers, forced labor, complete collectivization. Domestic history also knows other cases of mass deaths from starvation. As a rule, they were caused by crop failures.
War and pestilence are not equal concepts. However, the phenomena that are hidden behind them are interconnected. The famine of the 1930s was caused by the crisis that erupted after the Civil War.
In the Dahl dictionary
But not always the concept of "pestilence" has such a negative meaning. For example, the compiler of the most famous explanatory dictionary claimed that pestilence is silk brocade. In this case, the noun should be attributed to archaisms. Indeed, "pestilence" in this sense has not been used for a long time.
Verb derived from the word "pestilence"
The same Dahl explains the meaning of the verb "to starve" as follows: to take life, to kill, to destroy. Given in his dictionary and adjectives, such as "marine", "marine". And the first and second out of use came out. These words can only be found today in the literature of writers of the 19th and 20th centuries. As well as the adjective “icy”, previously used in relation to the year, which became fatal for a large number of people. Dahl's marine contemporaries called tiring work or a poisonous potion. And the doctor, who could not heal, but did only harm to his patients, could well hear the insulting word "scavenger" in his address.
The verb “stain” has several other meanings. The first is "to tire, annoy, annoy." The second is "to make fun, to amuse." Among the root words found in modern speech, is “scream,” meaning something extremely funny.
And finally, another meaning of the verb formed from the word "pestilence" is "bake, dulling the sharpness."
In mythology
There are several versions regarding etymology. According to one of them, the noun comes from the mythological creature of Maren, who lived in the consciousness of the ancient Slavs. This character symbolized death, dying, withering of all living things. According to some researchers, the Slavic Marena is related to the Roman Mars - the god responsible for fertility, and therefore had every right, in order to raise ordinary mortals, to organize them both the death of the cattle and the death of the crop.
Literary hero
Mor is also a character from a series of books by the English writer Pratchett. The hero of the “Flat World” dreamed of knowing the unknown, and therefore went to the apprentices to Death, who taught him his craft. The work left its mark, and Mor began to look more and more like his teacher, because "death is the one who does her work."