suppurate

American  

[suhp-yuh-rayt] / 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

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Etymology

Origin of suppurate

1555–65; < Latin suppūrātus (past participle of suppūrāre ), equivalent to sup- sup- + pūr- (stem of pūs ) pus + -ātus -ate ¹

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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

Some of them seemed to be simply swollen red blood corpuscles, ready to burst, or as it were, suppurate.

From Report on Surgery to the Santa Clara County Medical Society by Joseph Bradford Cox

Supp′urātive, tending to suppurate: promoting suppuration.—n. a medicine which promotes suppuration.

From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 4 of 4: S-Z and supplements) by Various

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

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 George Dadd

Soon slight cracks appear transversely, and may gain in depth and width, and may even suppurate.

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

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

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

One month later the globe suppurated and was removed.

From Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 Being Mainly a Clinical Study of the Nature and Effects of Injuries Produced by Bullets of Small Calibre by George Henry Makins

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

She understood better than most the suppurating sores beneath the skin of American life.

From New York Times ● Aug. 6, 2019

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

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