PopVocab: Insidious vs. Invidious
Insidious is an adjective meaning:
1. Working or spreading harmfully in a subtle or stealthy manner: insidious rumors; an insidious disease.
2. Intended to entrap; treacherous: insidious misinformation.
3. Beguiling but harmful; alluring: insidious pleasures.
Insidious is also the title of a 2010 horror film starring Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne and Ty Simpkins. According to IMDB: “A family looks to prevent evil spirits from trapping their comatose child in a realm called The Further.” Seems likely that a haunted house could provide a steathily-spreading evil.
Relatedly, an insidious disease is “a disease existing, without marked symptoms, but ready to become active upon some slight occasion; a disease not appearing to be as bad as it really is.”
Insidious Disease is also, appropriately enough, a death metal band:
If you ask INSIDIOUS DISEASE about their definition of death metal they would probably answer that it should satisfy your urge for darkness, the morbid and the sick, the perverted and the twisted, all things insane that can be discovered within the human mind and soul manifesting in a sound that makes you vomit your guts out!
Don’t confuse insidious with the similar-sounding invidious, which means:
1. Tending to rouse ill will, animosity, or resentment: invidious accusations.
2. Containing or implying a slight; discriminatory
3. Envious.
Use insidious for creeping, slow-moving evil, and invidious for actions done by humans that are immediately obvious as being harmful. Racist speech is invidious, and the lingering effects of racism have insidious effects on people’s lives.