ulcerate
Americanverb (used without object)
verb (used with object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of ulcerate
1375–1425; late Middle English < Latin ulcerātus (past participle of ulcerāre to make sore), equivalent to ulcer- ( see ulcer) + -ātus -ate 1
Explanation
To ulcerate is to fester, or to develop into a terrible, painful sore. Ouch! In medical terms, when a wound ulcerates, it doesn't heal, but becomes worse — red, open, painful, and sometimes infected. Skin can ulcerate, resulting in bedsores or canker sores in the mouth, and internal wounds can also ulcerate, forming what's known as an ulcer, or open sore. The Latin root of both words, ulcus, means "sore."
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.
See Examples For:
The improvement didn't last long though, as the cornea began to cloud and ulcerate.
From BBC ● Jun. 13, 2015
The prison press must publish under conditions that would ulcerate an editor on the outside.
From Time Magazine Archive
It's just big happy crowds of harmless arty people expressing themselves and breaking a few pointless shibboleths that only serve to ulcerate young people anyway.
From Time Magazine Archive
Should the wound not readily heal, but ulcerate, it may be bathed with alum-water.
From Sheep, Swine, and Poultry Embracing the History and Varieties of Each; The Best Modes of Breeding; Their Feeding and Management; Together with etc. by Robert Jennings
As it increases in size it spreads over the alveoli of several teeth, becomes softer, and assumes a dark violet colour, and if subjected to pressure or irritation may ulcerate and bleed.
From Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. by Alexander Miles
While Vitale said in a statement that the rest has helped, he will need surgery to treat the ulcerated lesions on his vocal cords.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 24, 2022
Further autopsies carried out both in Kuala Lumpur and London both concluded that Nóra had died because of a heavily ulcerated upper intestine caused by extreme stress and lack of food.
From BBC ● Jan. 4, 2021
The fish had ulcerated skin and internal hemorrhages; sometimes ponds full of fish were wiped out.
From Science Magazine ● Mar. 4, 2020
In 1846, Boston dentist William Morton used ether as an anesthetic for the first time as he extracted an ulcerated tooth from merchant Eben Frost.
From Washington Times ● Sep. 30, 2018
A pair of captain’s bars ulcerated with rust hung on the man’s ragged shirt collar.
From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
But the sores that worried the vets were actually tumors that were ulcerating and rotting away under assault by T-cells.
From New York Times ● Jul. 30, 2016
But the ulcerating guilt captured in that brutal couplet calls to mind something else that Kipling did: pull strings to get John a commission, after John had twice been rejected on account of weak eyesight.
From The New Yorker ● Sep. 25, 2015
But fewer could name the disease spread by those pesky sandflies: The ulcerating skin infection called leishmaniasis.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 25, 2011
Just three hilarious, incisive episodes later, it was all over – quietly discharged from the schedules, leaving an almost perceptible stench of soiled sheets, rising bile and ulcerating despair.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 18, 2010
By April 21 Olmsted was again confined to bed “with sore throat, an ulcerating tooth, and much pain preventing sleep.”
From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson
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.
