'Plague' is Latin for 'a blow' — epidemic disease understood as a divine strike. Apt during the Black Death.
A contagious bacterial disease characterized by fever and delirium, or more broadly, any epidemic disease causing high mortality.
From Latin 'plāga' (a blow, a strike, a wound), from the same root as Greek 'plēgḗ' (πληγή, a blow, a stroke), from PIE *pleh₂g- (to strike). The progression from 'a blow' to 'a pestilence' reflects the ancient understanding of epidemic disease as a divine punishment — a blow struck by God. The word entered English via Old French 'plage' during the Black
The word 'plague' literally means 'a blow' — from PIE *pleh₂g- (to strike). When medieval Europeans called the Black Death a 'plague,' they were calling it a blow from God. The same root gives us 'plangere' (to beat the breast in grief), source of 'plaint' and 'complaint' — grieving and plague are linguistically the same act of being struck.