From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishblightblight1 /blaɪt/ noun 1 [singular, uncountable]HBP an unhealthy condition of plants in which parts of them dry up and die2 [singular]SPOIL something that makes people unhappy or that spoils their lives or the environment they live inblight on Her guilty secret was a blight on her happiness. the blight of poverty
Examples from the Corpus
blight• A 250-foot communications tower becomes a symbol of environmental decay as well asa cancer-causing blight on society.• This promised major benefits to the nine Baltimore schools, some of which suffered from inner-city blight.• Bartlett pears are susceptible to fire blight.• The City Council even passed a resolution declaring that there was no blight in Oakland.• In the meantime, an owner who wishes to move and sell his property has to wrestle with the problem of blight.• Fujimori argues that the recovery is on course and that he has made important inroads against the centuries-old blight of poverty.• Nor are the blight years which affected potato crops in about one year in three, in the not so distant past.blight on• Billboards are a blight on the community.blightblight2 verb [transitive] SPOILto spoil or damage something, especially by preventing people from doing what they want to do a disease which, though not fatal, can blight the lives of its victims a country blighted by poverty —blighted adjective blighted hopes→ See Verb tableExamples from the Corpus
blight• Many considered the Booker Washington area hopelessly blighted.• The atmosphere was being poisoned, every green thing blighted, and every stream fouled with chemical fumes and waste.• Despite such inside knowledge, the opening passages were racked with nervousness and blighted by a series of up-and-unders.• Life may be regarded as an austere struggle, blighted by fate, where only the rich and the lucky fare well.• David and Barbara Owen say the property is blighted by plans for a bypass just yards away.• The country is blighted by poverty.• Rusty cans and plastic wrappers are blighting our wilderness areas.• No one kept track of exactly how many were mistreated, but several thousand deaths blight the record of Ferdinand and Isabelia. 