1
botany
a
: a disease or injury of plants marked by the formation of lesions, withering, and death of parts (such as leaves and tubers)
potato blight
b
: an organism (such as an insect or a fungus) that causes blight
2
: something that frustrates plans or hopes
the blight of poverty
an abandoned factory that was a blight on the neighborhood
3
: something that impairs or destroys
… censorship … has brought under its blight Ireland's greatest poets, dramatists, and scholars.—
Paul Blanshard
4
: a deteriorated condition
urban blight
blighted; blighting; blights
1
botany
: to affect (a plant) with a disease or injury marked by the formation of lesions, withering, and death of parts (such as leaves and tubers) : to affect with blight (see blight entry 1 sense 1)
The apple trees were blighted by fungus.
2
: to impair the quality or effect of
… the condition that has blighted his son's life.—Patricia Guthrie
botany
: to suffer from or become affected with blight
The potatoes blighted.
Examples of blight in a Sentence
Noun
the city's spreading urban blight
the expanding urban sprawl is a blight on the countryside
Verb
Builders blighted the land with malls and parking lots.
Recent Examples on the Web
Jenna Prestininzi, Freep.com, 13 Jan. 2026
Bacterial plant diseases include speck (a winter-surviving infection that attacks tomatoes), canker (which damages fruit trees including those producing apples and peaches), and blight (which rots melons, cucumbers, pumpkins, squash, peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, beans, and more).
—New Atlas, 10 Jan. 2026
Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board, The Orlando Sentinel, 11 Jan. 2026
How was this considered blighted?
—John Mannillo, Twin Cities, 29 Dec. 2025
See All Example Sentences for blight
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Noun
The architecture and design magazine selected the city due to its revitalization of historic buildings, population growth, and blight removal in recent years, according to Wallpaper*.
—Verb
Slowly and painfully, state leaders learned to recognize that — cheered on by their constituents, who don’t want to live in communities blighted by sprawl and surrounded by environmental wreckage.
—Cite this Entry
“Blight.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blight. Accessed 20 Jan. 2026.
Kids Definition
blight
1 of 2 noun1
a
: a disease of plants marked by withering and death of parts (as leaves)
b
: an organism that causes blight
2
a
: something that harms or destroys
b
: a damaged or worsened condition
urban blight
blight
2 of 2 verb1
: to affect with blight
2
: to damage or worsen the quality or condition of
slums and blighted areas
3
: to suffer from or become affected with blight
Medical Definition
blight
noun
Australian
: an inflammation of the eye in which the eyelids discharge a thick mucous substance that often seals them up for days and minute granular pustules develop inside the lid
called also sandy blight
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