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 sores, especially when deep, suppurate freely, and if there are no complications they tend to heal rapidly as soon as the degenerated tissue has softened and is entirely removed.
From Special Report on Diseases of the Horse by Michener, Charles B.
Chicken-pox is accompanied with sensitive fever, pustules break out after a mild fever like the small-pox, seldom suppurate, and generally terminate in scales without scars.
From Zoonomia, Vol. II Or, the Laws of Organic Life by Darwin, Erasmus
When the outer skin begins to suppurate, it should be removed with a pair of pincers, and the patch treated as an open wound.
From Special Report on Diseases of the Horse by Michener, Charles B.
The head swells to an enormous extent, becoming so heavy that the animal cannot support it, and therefore drags it along the ground; the ears suppurate.
From Austral English A dictionary of Australasian words, phrases and usages with those aboriginal-Australian and Maori words which have become incorporated in the language, and the commoner scientific words that have had their origin in Australasia by Morris, Edward Ellis
Such glands rarely suppurate or undergo a necrotic degeneration; sometimes they become permanently indurated.
From A System of Practical Medicine by American Authors, Vol. I Volume 1: Pathology and General Diseases by Various
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.
