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

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

“He is in the most favourable position for the wounds in his back and chest to suppurate easily, and absolute rest is necessary.”

From The Secret of the Island by Kingston, William Henry Giles

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

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

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

But suddenly she sickened again: her disease raged with great violence during five weeks, when her eyes and ears were inflamed, suppurated, and their contents were discharged.

From Journal of a Voyage across the Atlantic by Moore, George

He never had the cow-pox; but, in consequence of dressing horses with sore heels at his father's, when a lad, he had sores on his fingers which suppurated, and which occasioned a pretty severe indisposition.

From The Harvard Classics Volume 38 Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) by Various

He died on the 17th instant, of an imposthume of his lungs, which having suppurated and burst, he had not strength to throw off the matter, and was suffocated by it.

From Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 3 by Randolph, Thomas Jefferson

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