English 'pandemic' combines Greek 'pan' (all) + 'dēmos' (people) — literally 'of all the people' — a word that scales 'epidemic' from a regional outbreak to a worldwide one, and whose root 'demos' is the same word at the heart of democracy.
Prevalent over a whole country or the world; an outbreak of a disease prevalent over a whole country or the world.
From Greek 'pandēmos' (πάνδημος, of all the people, belonging to the whole people), a compound of 'pan' (πᾶν, all, every) + 'dēmos' (δῆμος, people, district, populace). The root 'dēmos' is from PIE *deh₂- (to divide, to share), with 'demos' originally meaning the people as a shared territory or community. The related term 'epidemic' (Greek 'epi-' upon + 'demos') means upon the people — a disease
The three great disease-scale words — endemic, epidemic, pandemic — are all built on the Greek 'demos' (people). Endemic means within a people (always present locally), epidemic means upon a people (fallen on a region), pandemic means all the people (the whole world). Greek political vocabulary became the grammar
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