a. and sb. [f. Gr. ἐν in + δῆμ-ος people + -IC.]
A. adj. Constantly or regularly found among a (specified) people, or in a (specified) country: esp.
a. Of plants or animals: Having their ordinary habitat in a certain country; opposed to exotic. b. Of diseases: Habitually prevalent in a certain country, and due to permanent local causes.
1759. Goldsm., Bee, No. 1. A deformity which, as it was endemic … it had been the custom … to look upon as the greatest beauty.
1776. Adam Smith, W. N., I. I. viii. 77, note. Famines are periodical or endemic in Hindostan.
1802. Med. Jrnl., VIII. 450. The author … proceeds … to show in what sense the plague may be termed endemic.
1830–2. Lyell, Princ. Geol. (1875), II. III. xli. 413. The endemic, and other species of animals and plants in the Atlantic Islands.
1852. Blackie, Stud. Lang., 1. An unreflecting habit of routine that seems endemic among official men in our country.
1876. Darwin, Cross-Fertil., xi. 415. They [bees] visit many exotic flowers as readily as the endemic kinds.
B. sb. An endemic disease. Also fig.
1662. J. Chandler, Van Helmont’s Oriat., 191. It is not manifest, that Endemicks or things proper to people in the Countrey where they live, are drawn by the Arteries.
1809. W. Irving, Knickerb., VII. viii. (1849), 417. That talking endemic, so prevalent in this country.
1857. Buckle, Civiliz., I. 118, note. European diseases, some of which, such as small-pox, have passed from epidemics into endemics.
1859. Sat. Rev., VIII. 261/2. Snobbishness is an insidious endemic.
