The disease afflicts an estimated two million people every year.
the South was afflicted by a severe drought
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Health advocates fear this could lead to higher rates of illness among children, which could worsen the health care disparities that already afflict the Black community.—Nicquel Terry Ellis, CNN Money, 14 Sep. 2025 Measles is a highly contagious, vaccine-preventable disease caused by a virus that primarily and most severely afflicts children.—Mary Walrath-Holdridge, USA Today, 12 Sep. 2025 Just look at poverty, violence and health and housing inequities that have long afflicted Fairhill and West Kensington, two adjacent and heavily Puerto Rican neighborhoods in North Philadelphia.—Héctor M. Varela Rios, The Conversation, 8 Sep. 2025 Those who dismissed intersectionality saw such policies as little more than allowing the disadvantaged to commit crimes without consequences to make up for past inequities, afflicting crime victims from the same disadvantaged communities.—John Scott Lewinski, The Washington Examiner, 5 Sep. 2025 See All Example Sentences for afflict
Word History
Etymology
Middle English afflihten "to excite, become distressed," probably verbal derivative of affliht, aflyght "disturbed, upset," borrowed from Latin afflīctus, past participle of afflīgere "to knock or strike down, ruin, distress severely," from ad-ad- + flīgere "to strike down" — more at profligate entry 1
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