Dictionary entry

Endemic

Webster's Dictionary 1913

{ En‐de″mic (?), En‐de″mic‐al (?), } a. [Gr. �, �; � + � the people: cf. F. endémique.] (Med.) Peculiar to a district or particular locality, or class of persons; as, an endemic disease.

☞ 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.