Endemic

How to spell endemic

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce endemic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does endemic mean?

1. adjectiveRegularly found and constantly present within a particular population or area, especially a disease.
2. adjectiveNative to and found only in one specific geographic region, used of plants and animals.

Endemic in a sentence

• Malaria remains endemic in several tropical regions.

• The lemur is endemic to the forests of Madagascar.

• Corruption had become endemic in the local council.

• Many endemic species on the island face extinction.

Where does endemic come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word comes from the Greek endēmos, which described something native to or dwelling among a particular people. It was built from en, meaning 'in' or 'within', joined to dēmos, meaning 'the people' or 'a district', the very same root that gives us 'democracy' and 'demographic'. Greek physicians used the related term for diseases that were constantly present in a specific population, in contrast to an 'epidemic' that sweeps in from outside. English took the word in the mid 1600s, partly through French endémique and partly straight from the Greek, first in medical writing and later in natural history for plants and animals confined to one region. The spelling trap is mostly in hearing the unstressed first syllable as 'en' rather than 'in', and in remembering the single 'm' that the dēmos root supplies.

How the word is built

• en- (in, within)
• dem (from Greek dēmos: people, district)
• -ic (adjective suffix)