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

After a wound begins to suppurate it does little good to put antiseptics into it, as they cause considerable irritation, and under no circumstances do they put an end to the pus formation.

From Health on the Farm A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene by Harris, H. F. (Henry Fauntleroy)

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

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

The diseased action extends into the throat, mouth and eyes, while the whole face becomes swollen and erysipelatous, and the lymphatic glands under the jaws inflame and suppurate.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 1 "Gichtel, Johann" to "Glory" by Various

The skin may suppurate or slough more or less over the areas of greatest tension or where it is irritated by blows or pressure.

From Special Report on Diseases of the Horse by Michener, Charles B.

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

Thirty or forty small electric shocks were passed through it once or twice a day for two or three weeks, and it then suppurated and healed without difficulty.

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

As soon as the skin is reached by the originally deepseated centres of suppuration, it gradually becomes red and later on also suppurated.

From Prof. Koch's Method to Cure Tuberculosis Popularly Treated by Brendecke, Fr. (Friedrich)

The skin around the coronet may occasionally become fissured and the thin skin in the cleft of the foot eroded and suppurated, but without the formation of vesicles.

From Special Report on Diseases of Cattle by United States. Bureau of Animal Industry

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

From Salon ● Oct. 4, 2024

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

Guerline Brumaches, 40, was languishing in a corner, naked from the waist up, with a suppurating wound the size of a baseball on her swollen left foot where she had been cut by flying debris.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 3, 2016

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

From "Matilda" by Roald Dahl