present participle of plague

annoyance; harassment

(of a place or community) Experiencing an epidemic or epidemics of bubonic plague or another illness. / (of a time) During which there is an epidemic or epidemics of bubonic plague or another illness.

(pathology, obsolete, slang, 1980s) Synonym of AIDS (“acquired immune deficiency syndrome”)

(electronics, informal) Premature failure of an electrolytic capacitor, especially when several are beginning to fail at the same time in a piece of equipment (due, for example, to high demands imposed by the circuit design, such as in a switchmode power supply), necessitating "re-capping" (i.e. replacing many capacitors after disconnecting the power and waiting for lethal charge to dissipate).

Synonym of anthrax.

plural of bubonic plague

smallpox

plural of plague doctor

(European history) A physician treating the bubonic plague, or employed simply to collect demographic and epidemiological data, especially one wearing protective clothing including goggles and a mask with a long bird's beak filled with aromatics to ward off the disease.