defecation

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin dēfaecātiō (“action of purifying”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} recorded in Tertullian in the early 3rd century,^[2] a noun formed with -iō on the past participial stem of Latin dēfaecō (“to cleanse from dregs, purify”).^[2][3][4] The Latin verb comes from dē- and faex (“grounds, sediment, wine-lees, dregs”),^[2][3] which is of unknown origin,^[3] and Etymonline takes it from the phrase dē faece (“from dregs”).^[3] The sense of passing faeces was at first modelled on French défécation, recorded in that sense in 1814 and for purifying a substance in 1660.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The separation of a liquid from its dregs or lees, and the cleansing of something more generally: 1623, in Cockeram's English Dictionarie.^[2][6] Etymonline has this sense only from the 1650s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word was first about purifying, and it was used of the mind and soul as well: the OED has this figurative sense from 1632 to 1799,^[2] and Etymonline from the 1640s.^[3] Johnson (1755) still defined it only as "purification; the act of clearing or purifying", though his quotation from Harvey speaks of the spleen and liver failing in "their offices of defecation".^[7] The bodily sense appears in 1825, in a translation of Broussais,^[2] or 1830 according to Etymonline,^[3] after the French use.^[2] The related verb defecate, recorded from the 1570s for purifying, acquired the excretory sense by 1849.^[3] The older sense is now mostly technical,^[6] above all in the refining of sugar.^[5] For the act itself Etymonline cites Old English ears-gang, literally "arse-going", for a bowel movement in Old English,^[3] while Bosworth-Toller glosses the word as the anus and as a privy.^[8]

Timeline

• 1623 – the separating of a liquid from its dregs; cleansing, clarifying.^[2][6] Etymonline dates it to the 1650s.^[3]
• 1632 – figurative, moral or spiritual purification (obsolete by 1799).^[2] Etymonline dates it to the 1640s.^[3]
• 1825 – the passing of faeces.^[2] Etymonline dates it to 1830.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The discharge of feces from the bowels: The illness makes defecation painful.^[5][2][6]
2. Separation from dregs or impurities; purification, especially of sugar.^[5][2][6]
3. (obsolete, 1632–1799) Moral, mental or spiritual purification.^[2][3]

Related words

• defecate
• feces
• fecal

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement