pernicious.
Causing much harm in a subtle way.
Meaning & usage
Causing much harm in a subtle way.
pernicious influence
pernicious effects
Causing death or injury; deadly.
Insidiously villainous: intending to cause harm, especially in a subtle way.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English, from Old French pernicios, from Latin perniciōsus (“destructive”), from perniciēs (“destruction”), from per (“through”) + nex (“slaughter, death”).
swift; celeritous.
Where this word comes from
Analyzable as pernīx ("swift") + -ious.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.