Rife
[raɪf]
Definition
(a.) Prevailing; prevalent; abounding.
(a.) Having power; active; nimble.
Editor: Lou
Synonyms and Synonymous
a. Prevailing, prevalent, common, abounding.
Checked by Benita
Definition
adj. prevailing: abundant: plentiful: well supplied: current: manifest.—adv. Rife′ly.—n. Rife′ness.
Editor: Stu
Examples
- For two weeks no word has come back from them, but rumours were rife that they had met with a terrible disaster and that all were dead. Edgar Rice Burroughs. The Gods of Mars.
- Death, waste, hunger, and disease are very rife to-day; the world is full of physical evils, but there is this mental awakening to set against them. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- Mrs. Helstone was hardly under the sod when rumours began to be rife in the neighbourhood that she had died of a broken heart. Charlotte Bronte. Shirley.
- As in all Southern mansions hospitality was rife at the Greenes’, and it happened that one evening a number of gentlemen were gathered there who had fought under the General in the Revolution. Rupert S. Holland. Historic Inventions.
- A strange story was rife here. Mary Shelley. The Last Man.
- Such symptoms, when a disease of the kind is rife, are usually the signs of sickening. Charles Dickens. Little Dorrit.
- So rife and potent was the fever in Bleeding Heart Yard, that Mr Pancks's rent-days caused no interval in the patients. Charles Dickens. Little Dorrit.
- The claim thus made goes back to the period when all was war, and when dispute was hot and rife as to the actual invention of the telephone. Frank Lewis Dyer. Edison, His Life and Inventions.
Editor: Stu