Organisms that are harmful, destructive, or troublesome to humans, crops, or domestic animals; annoying or troublesome people or things.
From French 'peste' meaning 'plague,' from Latin 'pestis' meaning 'deadly disease, plague, pestilence.' The word broadened from referring specifically to plague to any harmful organism, and eventually to annoying people or situations.
What counts as a 'pest' is entirely dependent on human perspective - the same insect might be considered a pest in a garden but a valuable pollinator in a wild ecosystem. This anthropocentric definition reveals how we categorize nature based on its usefulness to us rather than its inherent ecological role.
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