Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To cause to decay and have a foul odor. See Synonyms at decay.
- v. To make gangrenous.
- v. To become decayed and have a foul odor.
- v. To become gangrenous.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To render putrid; cause to decay with an offensive odor; cause to become fetid by rotting. See putrefaction.
- To make carious or gangrenous.
- To corrupt; make foul or offensive.
- Synonyms Decay, Corrupt, etc. See rot.
Wiktionary
- v. To become filled with a pus-like or bile-like substance.
- v. To reach an advanced stage of decomposition.
- v. To become gangrenous.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To render putrid; to cause to decay offensively; to cause to be decomposed; to cause to rot.
- v. To corrupt; to make foul.
- v. To make morbid, carious, or gangrenous.
- v. To become putrid; to decay offensively; to rot.
WordNet 3.0
- v. become putrid; decay with an offensive smell
Etymologies
- Middle English putrefien, from Old French putrefier, from Latin putrefacere : puter, putr-, rotten; see pū̆- in Indo-European roots + facere, to make; see dhē- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“* Dead bodies quickly putrefy and so become a health hazard to the living.”
“Soon enough, a patient may be able to remain on such apparatuses for many months, long after meaningful brain function has ceased, until his skin and tissue begins to putrefy.”
“After we die, hate will be the first thing to putrefy within us . . .”
“The carnage of this battle can not be imagined; the heat of mid-summer made the bodies of the dead men and horses putrefy almost immediately.”
“They separate, putrefy, and fail to accomplish their reported claims.”
“YUENDUMU, Australia -- Two dead cows putrefy at the entrance to this Aboriginal town deep in the Australian outback.”
“They do not ferment or putrefy in our colon, as do processed foods, dairy products and meats.”
“But let the site of such places be as it may, how can they be excused that have a delicious seat, a pleasant air, and all that nature can afford, and yet through their own nastiness, and sluttishness, immund and sordid manner of life, suffer their air to putrefy, and themselves to be chocked up?”
“Sanguinem inficiunt, saith Villanovanus, they infect the blood, and putrefy it, Magninus holds, and must not therefore be taken via cibi, aut quantitate magna, not to make a meal of, or in any great quantity.”
“Many ill matters and projects are undertaken; and private suits do putrefy the public good.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘putrefy’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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macabre
words associated with the macabre & horror.
( open list, randomness )
more:
http://www.wordnik.co...ghastly, grisly, culeus, silly, gruesome, horrid, morbid, angelic, shocking, hideous, ghoulish, frightful and 136 more...
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-fy
make
satisfy, mollify, exemplify, sanctify, deify, nullify, dignify, putrefy, solidify, beautify, jellify
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ash vocab
flippant, fillip, expiate, explicate, extirpate, facile, florid, fealty, allegiance, fetid, febrile, pert and 134 more...
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Hit Parade GRE
Princeton Review words
abscond, aberrant, alacrity, anomaly, approbation, arduous, assuage, audacious, austere, axiomatic, canonical, capricious and 287 more...
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collection
sanguine, vie, antebellum, glacial, treacly, iconoclast, lissom, anathema, serendipity, parsimonious, histrionic, contemptuous and 279 more...
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Misc. Words.
Words I like to use, words I like but may forget.
corrosion, astonish, solace, ferment, continuum, kinesthetic, permeate, repose, caprice, cardinal, discourse, surrender and 610 more...
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Test-words
rarefy, occlude, bolt, lambaste, career, careen, largesse, enormity, neologism, quizzical, sibyl, euphony and 105 more...
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worddom
put words in their place
theca, wisdom, kingdom, freedom, boredom, seldom, martyrdom, abdomen, doom, samhita, duma, dumka and 151 more...
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Papageno's Words, Pt. I
hobbledehoy, absquatulate, chthonic, prolix, ululate, internecine, verisimilitude, animadversion, concupiscence, vertiginous, cucullate, lucubrate and 1554 more...
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random
words I read but don't know
nascent, proxy, desultory, charlatan, churlish, emaciated, gaudy, shill, lurid, frisson, marauding, plunder and 610 more...
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ash
ash
abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abide, abject, abjure and 4874 more...
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GRE uncommon
patronage, expletive, exhort, exegesis, execrable, excommunicate, evince, escarpment, ersatz, ergo, epoxy, snare and 1202 more...
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kap_4
unfeigned, lumber, pluck, quail, scurvy, brook, asseverate, desuetude, diaphanous, insouciant, jejune, puissance and 34 more...
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mmalone's Words
miasma, kitsch, equipoise, pinion, harbinger, mirabilis, annus mirabilis, skein, bulwark, capricious, fortuitous, planetesimal and 233 more...
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