Quote:
Originally posted by mmm3587
* I hereby request a brief treatise on these terms.
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Brought to you by dictionary.com.
An epidemic is something that spreads rapidly and extensively. It can be a disease, it can be a sense, the example they use is an epidemic of discontent, it can be pretty much any old thing, they also use epidemic of unemployment.
On the other hand, endemic is localized to a particular region or people.
So one might say something such as:
"Once upon a time ending a sentence with the word at was endemic to central Pennsylvania. However, it now seems to have become an epidemic throughout the United states.
Epidemic is both a noun and an adjective. Endemic is as well, but the noun form is normally used with ecology, or at least so says dictionary.com.
