insidious

adjective/ɪnˈsɪdiəs/

Frequency rank: #10,182 of 20,003 in the WORDED list (wordfreq data)

Meaning

Proceeding in a gradual, subtle way but with harmful effects.

Illustration for the English word “insidious”

Example sentence

The insidious disease showed no symptoms for years before it became life-threatening.

Synonyms & related words

More words in ranks 10,101–10,200