"plagues" in the noun sense
1. plague, pestilence, pest, pestis
a serious (sometimes fatal) infection of rodents caused by Yersinia pestis and accidentally transmitted to humans by the bite of a flea that has bitten an infected animal
2. plague, pestilence, pest
any epidemic disease with a high death rate
3. infestation, plague
a swarm of insects that attack plants
"a plague of grasshoppers"
4. plague
any large scale calamity (especially when thought to be sent by God)
5. plague
an annoyance
"those children are a damn plague"
"plagues" in the verb sense
1. blight, plague
cause to suffer a blight
"Too much rain may blight the garden with mold"
2. harass, hassle, harry, chivy, chivvy, chevy, chevvy, beset, plague, molest, provoke
annoy continually or chronically
"He is known to harry his staff when he is overworked"
"This man harasses his female co-workers"
Source: WordNet® (An amazing lexical database of English)
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