Hypertext Webster Gateway: "endemic"
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (web1913)
Endemic \En*dem"ic\, a.
Belonging or native to a particular people or country; native
as distinguished from introduced or naturalized; hence,
regularly or ordinarily occurring in a given region; local;
as, a plant endemic in Australia; -- often distinguished from
{exotic}.
The traditions of folklore . . . from a kind of endemic
symbolism. --F. W. H.
Myers.
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (web1913)
Endemic \En*de"mic\, Endemical \En*de"mic*al\, a. [Gr. ?, ?; ? +
? the people: cf. F. end['e]mique.] (Med.)
Peculiar to a district or particular locality, or class of
persons; as, an endemic disease.
Note: An endemic disease is one which is constantly present
to a greater or less degree in any place, as
distinguished from an epidemic disease, which prevails
widely at some one time, or periodically, and from a
sporadic disease, of which a few instances occur now
and then.
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (web1913)
Endemic \En*dem"ic\, n. (Med.)
An endemic disease.
Fear, which is an endemic latent in every human heart,
sometimes rises into an epidemic. --J. B. Heard.
From WordNet (r) 1.7 (wn)
endemic
adj 1: (of disease or anything resembling a disease) constantly
present to greater or lesser extent in a particular
locality; "diseases endemic to the tropics"; "endemic
malaria"; "food shortages and starvation are endemic
in certain parts of the world" [ant: {epidemic}]
2: (ecology) native to or confined to a certain region; "the
islands have a number of interesting endemic species"
[ant: {cosmopolitan}]
3: originating where it is found; "the autochthonal fauna of
Australia includes the kangaroo"; "autochthonous rocks and
people and folktales"; "endemic folkways"; "the Ainu are
indigenous to the northernmost islands of Japan" [syn: {autochthonal},
{autochthonic}, {autochthonous}, {indigenous}]
n : a disease that is constantly present to a greater or lesser
degree in people of a certain class or in people living
in a particular location [syn: {endemic disease}]
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