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

Affecting a large area (e.g. the entire land or body); broad in extent; widely diffused.

*

*:It was April 22, 1831, and a young man was walking down Whitehall in the direction of Parliament Street. He wore shepherd's plaid trousers and the swallow-tail coat of the day, with a figured muslin cravat wound about his wide-spread collar.

*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-28, author=(Joris Luyendijk)

, volume=189, issue=3, page=21, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Our banks are out of control , passage=Seeing the British establishment struggle with the financial sector is like watching an alcoholic