infest

1. 1

   To inhabit a place in unpleasantly large numbers; to plague, harass.transitive

   • Insects are infesting my basement!
2. 2

   To invade a host plant or animal.

syn. beride · plague

1. 1

   Mischievous; hurtful; harassing.obsolete

   • […] The swarme of scaled snakes Did make an yrksome noyce to heare, as she her tresses shakes. About her shoulders some did craule, some trayling downe her brest, Did hisse, and spit out poison greene, and spirt with tongues infest.
   • He stayed not t’advize, which way were best His foe t’assayle, or how himselfe to gard, But with fierce fury and with force infest Upon him ran […]

1. 1

   Hostility.obsoleteuncountable

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Book II, Canto Eleven, Stanza 32, Hackett, 2006, p. 191, Like as a fire, the which in hollow cave Hath long bene underkept, and down supprest, With murmurous disdayne doth inly rave, And grudge, in s