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general::
noun ADJ. major | widespread, worldwide | cholera, flu, typhoid, etc. EPIDEMIC + VERB break out, strike (sth) A typhus epidemic struck in the winter of 1919?20. | spread, sweep (sth) the flu epidemic sweeping the country PREP. during/in an/the ~ Over fifty people died during the flu epidemic last winter. | ~ of an epidemic of cholera PHRASES reach epidemic proportions Marriage breakdown in the West has reached epidemic proportions.
Oxford Collocations Dictionary