suppurate
Americanverb (used without object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of suppurate
1555–65; < Latin suppūrātus (past participle of suppūrāre ), equivalent to sup- sup- + pūr- (stem of pūs ) pus + -ātus -ate 1
Explanation
To suppurate is to get infected and form pus. If that scrape on your knee starts to suppurate, you might want to go to the doctor. In medicine, suppurate is the official term for what you might think of as "become gross and full of pus." Pimples sometimes become swollen and painful before they suppurate, and cuts and scrapes that get infected can also suppurate, oozing a thick, white substance. We can trace this word back to a root that means both "matter from a sore" and "bitterness or malice."
Vocabulary lists containing suppurate
Beowulf
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Matilda
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Novel Study: Beowulf (trans. Seamus Heaney), Lines 1905–3182
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
These bursæ are liable to become inflamed, and are then a source of great suffering, and if they suppurate may cause persistent sinuses.
From Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. by Miles, Alexander
These indolent tumours may be brought to suppurate sometimes by passing electric shocks through them every day for two or three weeks, as I have witnessed.
From Zoonomia, Vol. II Or, the Laws of Organic Life by Darwin, Erasmus
This malady makes its appearance on the cow's teats in the form of small pustules, which, after the inflammatory stage, suppurate.
From The American Reformed Cattle Doctor by Dadd, George
The testis in men is also liable to suppurate with great pain, long confinement, and much danger; and lastly the affection of the brain is fatal to many.
From Zoonomia, Vol. II Or, the Laws of Organic Life by Darwin, Erasmus
If the Fallopian tubes are involved, and this happens frequently, they suppurate, and often they must be removed by coeliotomy.
From Essays In Pastoral Medicine by ?Malley, Austin
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
