"pest" 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. pest, blighter, cuss, pesterer, gadfly
a persistently annoying person
4. pest
any unwanted and destructive insect or other animal that attacks food or crops or livestock etc.
"he sprayed the garden to get rid of pests"
"many pests have developed resistance to the common pesticides"
Source: WordNet® (An amazing lexical database of English)
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