suppurate

American  

[suhp-yuh-reyt] / ˈsʌp jəˌreɪt /

verb (used without object)

suppurated, suppurating

1. to produce or discharge pus, as a wound; maturate.

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suppurate British  

/ ˈsʌpjʊˌreɪt /

verb

1. (intr) pathol (of a wound, sore, etc) to discharge pus; fester

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Other Word Forms

• unsuppurated
  adjective

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."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

suppurate suppurated suppurating

There is usually some degree of fever, and the glands behind the angle of the jaw are enlarged and tender and may suppurate and set up cellulitis.

From Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. by Alexander Miles

Scrophulous tumours are sometimes absorbed, and sometimes brought to suppurate by passing electric shocks through them daily for two or three weeks.

From Zoonomia, Vol. II Or, the Laws of Organic Life by Erasmus Darwin

As soon, however, as these show a tendency to suppurate poultices should be applied, and the resulting ulcer treated as if occurring under other circumstances.

From A System of Practical Medicine by American Authors, Vol. I Volume 1: Pathology and General Diseases by Various

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 Edward Ellis Morris

In consequence of the cutaneous irritation the neighboring lymphatic glands may become inflamed and swollen, and in rare cases suppurate.

From Essentials of Diseases of the Skin Including the Syphilodermata Arranged in the Form of Questions and Answers Prepared Especially for Students of Medicine by Henry Weightman Stelwagon

The wound became infected, suppurated, and when a surgeon eventually removed a portion of his jaw, it left a deformed face and an angry, short-tempered man.

From BBC ● Nov. 25, 2015

The Tin Drum and Dog Years are masterpieces of comedy and verbal invention about the culture and history that suppurated as the Third Reich.

From Time Magazine Archive

In the old days every wound which suppurated had to be dressed, and there was the daily distress and pain, felt particularly by young children.

From Man's Redemption of Man A Lay Sermon by William Osler

At the first dressing everything seemed all right; two days later I found to my sorrow that the eye had suppurated, and that there was no hope of saving the vision.

From Behind the Veil in Persia and Turkish Arabia An account of an Englishwoman's Eight Years' Residence amongst the Women of the East by A. Hume-Griffith

A mucous discharge from the anus, called by some white piles, or matter from a suppurated pile, has been mistaken for the matter from a concealed fistula.

From Zoonomia, Vol. II Or, the Laws of Organic Life by Erasmus Darwin

All this comes before a close-up on a suppurating bedsore.

From Salon ● Oct. 4, 2024

It’s all very trippy, and sometimes morbidly funny, studded with fan-friendly gashes of body horror, most often by way of Beau’s own angry, suppurating wounds.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 19, 2023

The banter is believable, as are the pinpricks of disquiet and the weird suppurating wounds that increasingly mar this otherwise ordinary scene and its genial hero.

From New York Times ● Aug. 26, 2021

Nothing human is alien to it, not suppurating psychic wounds, and especially not bodily functions.

From The New Yorker ● Nov. 9, 2018

"I'll tell you what I'm talking about, you suppurating little blister!" the Trunchbull shouted.

From "Matilda" by Roald Dahl