All 3 Uses of
epidemic
in
Cold Sassy Tree
- She used to tell about a Confederate soldier from Cold Sassy who got sent to Andersonville to guard Yankee prisoners and passed away in the smallpox epidemic there.†
- We had our share of cotton-gin fires, epidemics, storms, and lawsuits, of course, but the only diversion we could count on was protracted meetings, recitals, ice cream socials, fish fries, and lectures — a doctor talking up his cure for cancer, an old man telling how he tracked a mammoth moose for nineteen days back in 1856, a young fellow talking about "Across Asia on a Bicycle."†
- I don't want no epidemic gittin' started in this town.
*epidemic = a widespread outbreak of an infectious disease
Definition:
a widespread outbreak of a disease that is passed from one person (or other organism) to another
or more rarely: anything that spreads quickly -- especially something bad
or more rarely: anything that spreads quickly -- especially something bad