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/ɹaɪf/ · adjective
Widespread, common, prevalent, current (mainly of unpleasant or harmful things)..
Smallpox was rife after the siege had been lifted.
Rumors were rife that the factory was about to shut down.
Before the plague of London, inflammations of the lungs were rife and mortal.
The tumult of loud mirth was rife.
She was afterwards Lady Keith; and the mention of this name in the tale, as it were by mere accident, fixes the era of it in the reign of James the Fourth, at the very time that fairies, brownies, and witches, were at the rifest in Scotland.
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.
BRB engineers, it is known, have a warm regard for the Ventura range and speculation is rife that it may feature more widely in future BR dieselisation programmes.
Red deer are rife in these woodlands.
Use rife when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.
Rife means Widespread, common, prevalent, current (mainly of unpleasant or harmful things)..
Common synonyms include pandemic, ubiquitous, filled, fraught.
The opposite depends on the specific sense.
Smallpox was rife after the siege had been lifted.
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