Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A generally viscous, yellowish-white fluid formed in infected tissue, consisting of white blood cells, cellular debris, and necrotic tissue.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. An inflammatory exudation composed of modified white blood-cells (pus-corpuscles), with more or less of the debris and of the proliferating cells of the solid tissues of the part, and a liquid plasma. The formation of pus is called
suppuration . A collection of pus within the solid tissues is called an abscess. A suppurating open sore is an ulcer.
Wiktionary
- n. A whitish-yellow or yellow substance composed primarily of dead white blood cells and dead pyogenic bacteria; normally found in regions of bacterial infection.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Med.) The yellowish white opaque creamy matter produced by the process of suppuration. It consists of innumerable white nucleated cells floating in a clear liquid.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the tenth month of the Hindu calendar
- n. a fluid product of inflammation
Etymologies
- From Latin pus, meaning the same. (Wiktionary)
- Latin pūs; see pū̆- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“He began arm-to-arm inoculations by taking pus from the scab of a person and transferring it to another.”
“Munkey: Would you rather bob for apples in pus, or hit a pinata full of diarrhea?”
“He often had to pry his eyes open in the morning with his fingers because they had been sealed shut with pus from the infections.”
“The old flag of yellow and gold we called pus and blood.”
“What we call pus is made up of the bodies of live and dead phagocytes, disease taints and germs, blood serum, broken-down tissues and cells, in short, the debris of the battlefield.”
“It would have been more realistic if the beaver started vomiting blood and its fur was clotted in pus.”
“Draining the pus was the only thing that helped, and I got a tetanus shot just because of the immobility.”
“Generally there is a discharge of greenish-yellow pus, which is very sticky.”
“This form of suppuration is due to a particular form of bacterium called the pus-causing "chain coccus.”
“There are three common forms of so-called pus cocci, and these are found almost indiscriminately with various types of inflammatory troubles.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘pus’.
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A Glossary of Filth
A compilation of those nitty-gritty yucky terms for substances and situations that we prefer not to encounter. Please folks, keep it clean; avoid the overly offensive ones.
"the terms...schmutz, smegma, muck, snarge, sewerage, mecomium, sewage, sebum, toe jam, pus, sludge, backwash and 130 more...
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Palabras de 3 letras en Español.
¡La única lista que también incluye flexiónes verbales y pluralizaciones! Ayúdame a encontrarlas todas.
(Por ser una lista para Scrabble, los dígrafos ll, rr, y ch valen como una sola ...aba, aca, aga, ahe, ahi, aho, aja, aje, aji, ajo, ala, ale and 427 more...
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3-letter Scrabble Words
aah, aal, aas, aba, abo, abs, aby, ace, act, add, ado, ads and 995 more...
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3 Letter Words
A list of English words that are three letters long.
ace, act, ade, ado, add, ads, age, ago, ail, air, aim, all and 397 more...
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Hate
Words I can't stand
moist, shunt, falafels, dank, chyle, pus, puss, girthy, impregnation, encroached, orifice, fondling and 3 more...
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I do not like them, Sam I Am
Words that, for various reasons, I wish we could do without.
copacetic, gamut, horehound, lewd, membrane, metrics, mucous, mucus, negligee, nostril, odious, odor and 143 more...
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Why We Curse: WTF?
This list collects the magnificent collection of vocabulary of the article "What the F***? Why We Curse," by Steven Pinker, in The New Republic (Oct. 2007). I think I'm more impressed with the coll...
curse, language, earthy, ancient, unthinkable, thinkable, emotional, rhyme, meter, alliteration, pleasure, metaphor and 196 more...
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Onomatopoetics
Words formed in imitation of a natural sound.
bumble-bee, rat-a-tat, blurt, clink, chickadee, rub-a-dub, chirr, chug, keck, flim-flam, brekekekex, thunk and 94 more...
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Reading Reading
Words from the works of Peter Reading - at least one from each (except the Schwitters-esque erosions, cut-ups etc).
overbright, pimpled, muskiness, effuse, stoup, maul, unlevel, viscid, perfidious, glibly, aloes, drouth and 449 more...
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yuck words
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Creative Onomatopoeia
Words that sound like what they mean, but they're not *technically* onomatopoetic.
(another edit: this list is morphing into something I can't quite describe. But I still like it.)ugly, icon, hang, weenie, bell, zit, ennui, sour, speed, rankle, muddle, disgruntle and 129 more...
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Words That Sound Dirty but Really Aren't
annals, assassinate, bisect, bubbly, caucus, caulk, colloquialism, concoct, condominium, congeal, congenital, convex and 131 more...
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words I have an irrational and burnin...
celesbian, crouch, perez hilton, slop, lotus boob, anal fissure, eat out, crotch, sewage, backwash, vomit, pus and 100 more...
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Really Cool Three-Letter Words
None of your "the" and "get" here. No, no. This is the place for auk and sty, and words of that ilk.
One might think that being limited to only three letters would prevent many words fro...auk, sty, ilk, ani, owl, zit, ink, eau, rum, pus, pwe, pyx and 105 more...
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hippietrail's Words
ginormous, résumé, bunyip, hela, ute, zelkova, tidal wave, pyramid, naïve, café, chocolate, wanker and 27 more...
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words I don't like very much
many frequently used by moms; words that sound dirtier than they are
crisp, grunge, cuddle, puke, smear, voucher, manipulate, fodder, coddle, fecund, chunk, hunk and 71 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for pus.
bilby Pus, Dan! Ogre sales use laser gonads up. Oct 18, 2008
yarb And there's pus in the weir; where once a white cumulus froth
of cauliflowers boiled, there's a fetid and curdling slack
of turpentine slick clotting up with each new pollutant
in a piled scum of rainbow blown corrugated and poxed,
while the same goes on in our own intestinal tracts.
- Peter Reading, Removals, from For the Municipality's Elderly, 1974 Jun 22, 2008
chained_bear That's all right. Wordie *shouldn't* give 'credit' for listing words on different lists. It's just for personal organization purposes, since there's no other reason for relisting words. I just... seem to have a lot of lists that words like 'pus' should, you know, be on... I guess... *starts to wonder* Dec 5, 2007
mollusque John doesn't give you credit for a second listing if you put a word on more than one of your lists. Dec 5, 2007
uselessness Yes, yes it were. Dec 4, 2007
chained_bear I don't think I have words on more than three lists, myself. (Could be wrong.) But I don't often see instances in which other users add a word to more than one of their lists.
soo... was that u being snide?! ;) Dec 1, 2007
reesetee Say! There's a good question! How do we find out? Dec 1, 2007
uselessness Hmm, I wonder what the record is for most lists by the same person a single word appears in...? Dec 1, 2007
chained_bear Hey, don't forget Creative Onomatopoeia! ;)
In my defense, can you think of three *other* letters that elicit that kind of strong reaction from so many people? Dec 1, 2007
bilby Sup backwards. Useful knowledge for those whose dietary intake is restricted to (body) fluids only. Dec 1, 2007
uselessness I was glancing though the list at right:
Disgusting words
Least favorites
Words I absolutely can NOT stand
Unpleasant words for unpleasant things
Words I don't like very much
...and then...
Really Cool Three-Letter Words, by chained_bear
:-P Dec 1, 2007
vanishedone I have to say, here I like WeirdNet's suggestion better than the meaning I had in mind. Dec 1, 2007