Adjective

(er)

Widespread, common (especially of unpleasant or harmful things).

Smallpox was rife after the siege had been lifted.

* Arbuthnot

Before the plague of London, inflammations of the lungs were rife and mortal.

* Milton

The tumult of loud mirth was rife .

* 1900 , Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams'', ''Avon Books , (translated by James Strachey) pg. 170:

The 'denominational considerations' mentioned below relate, of course, to anti-Semitic feeling, which was already rife in Vienna during the last years of the nineteenth century.

* 2013 , Daniel Taylor, Chelsea's Branislav Ivanovic climbs highest to sink Benfica'' (in ''The Guardian , 15 May 2013)[http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/may/15/benfica-chelsea-europa-league]

They will have to reflect on a seventh successive defeat in a European final while Chelsea try to make sense of an eccentric season rife with controversy and bad feeling but once again one finishing on an exhilarating high.

Abounding; present in large numbers, plentiful.

These woodlands are rife with red deer.

(obsolete) Having power; active; nimble.

* J. Webster

What! I am rife a little yet.

Adjective

(en adjective)

Having a quantity or amount that is generous or plentiful; ample.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-29, volume=407, issue=8842, page=29, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Unspontaneous combustion , passage=Since the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative palm-oil plantations, “haze” has become an almost annual occurrence in South-East Asia.}}