Pernicious Meaning and Usage

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Meaning:

adjective

- Tending to cause death or serious injury; deadly: a pernicious virus.
- Causing great harm; destructive: pernicious rumors.
- Evil; wicked; malicious: pernicious lies

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Derivatives:

perniciously - adverb
perniciousness – noun

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Use Pernicious in a sentence:

1. He frowned as one does when presented with an especially pernicious problem; and then brightened.

2. Chauvelin took another pinch of snuff: he seemed very much addicted to that pernicious habit.

3. Standing oil combined with a fresh rain on the asphalt can have a pernicious impact on a driver's control of the road.

4. The toxic waste dump being planned for our neighborhood could have a pernicious influence on the air we breathe and the water we drink.

5. The pernicious fire engulfed four blocks of buildings.

6. He was completely unaware of the pernicious disease eating him up from inside.

7. Amonia can have a pernicious effect on some people.

8. Besides he had, before visiting the monastery, a strong prejudice against the institution of ‘elders,’ which he only knew of by hearsay and believed to be a pernicious innovation.

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Synonyms:
bad, baneful, damaging, dangerous, deadly, deleterious, destructive, detrimental, evil, fatal, harmful, hurtful, injurious, insidious, lethal, malevolent, malicious, malign, malignant, noisome, noxious, offensive, pestilent, pestilential, poisonous, prejudicial, ruinous, sinister, subtle, unwholesome, venomous, virulent, wicked.

Antonyms:
beneficial, favorable, helpful, innocuous, kind, loveable, loving


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Know More:

pernicious implies irreparable harm done through evil or insidious corrupting or undermining
pernicious anemia, a pernicious dogma;

baneful implies injury through poisoning or destroying
“the baneful notion that discipline destroys creativity.”
“a baneful superstition”

noxious applies to what is both offensive and injurious to the health of a body or mind
“noxious chemical fumes”

deleterious applies to what has an often unsuspected harmful effect; it implies slower, less irreparable injury.
“the deleterious effects of an unbalanced diet”

detrimental implies obvious harmfulness to something specified
“the detrimental effects of excessive drinking”
“the speech was detrimental to our cause”

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Etymology: Latin per-nic-iosus the adjective of pernicis "destruction". The stem comprises the prefix per- and the root nex- (neks-) or nec- "violent death". The root is related to Latin noxa (noks-a) "harm, injury, crime" which underlies nox-ius "harmful, injurious, noxious" and ob-nox-ius "punishable, liable, addicted, guilty", both of which have also been borrowed into English with related meanings.

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Some more examples:

1. I learned from it also this, in particular, that being abroad in the rainy season was the most pernicious thing to my health that could be, especially in those rains.

2. Three things too much, and three too little are pernicious to man; to speak much, and know little; to spend much, and have little; to presume much, and be worth little.

3. Celia’s pernicious chicanery succeeded in getting her the promotion she wanted but seriously undermined our faith in the fairness of promotions here.

4. The lady's language had a pernicious effect on Johnny.

5. Overdosing on cocaine can have pernicious results causing death.

6. “That the show of religion was helpful to the politician, but the reality of it hurtful and pernicious.”

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