pus

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English pūs,^[2] borrowed from Latin pūs (“viscous matter from a sore”),^[3][4][5][6] whose stem form also gave purulent and suppurate.^[7] The Latin noun is related to puter (“rotten”) and pūteō (“to stink, be rotten”),^[8][5][7] and comes from Proto-Indo-European *pū- (“to rot, stink”),^[8][7] which Etymonline suggests was perhaps at first an echo of a natural cry of disgust.^[5] The same base is the source of Ancient Greek πύον (púon, “discharge from a sore, pus”),^[8][7][3] Lithuanian pūti (“to rot”),^[5] Gothic 𐍆𐌿𐌻𐍃 (fūls, “foul”) and Old English fūl (“foul”), the source of foul.^[8][5][3] The OED compares French pus, recorded in 1520 as puls.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Viscous matter from a sore: 1392 in Barnhart,^[4][9] late 14th century in Etymonline.^[5] The MED's quotations, from before 1425, are from a Middle English version of Chauliac.^[2] Hoad, Collins and Dictionary.com give the word only from the 16th century.^[6][10][11]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its meaning since it was taken over as a term of medicine, and the Shorter Oxford still labels it so.^[12] It seems at first to have needed explaining: in the Chauliac text the MED quotes, þe pus is glossed sanie, and where one version has pus another has quyttre.^[2] In Latin the noun could also be used figuratively for bitterness or malice.^[5] Johnson (1755) defined it as the matter of a well-digested sore, quoting Arbuthnot on "laudable pus", and gave only Latin as its origin.^[13] Modern dictionaries describe it by its make-up, chiefly dead white blood cells and tissue debris.^[14][10]

Timeline

• 1392 – viscous matter from a sore.^[4] The MED's first quotations date from before 1425.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The thick yellowish or greenish fluid formed in infected or inflamed tissue, made up largely of dead white blood cells and tissue debris: The nurse drained the pus from the wound.^[10][14][12]

Word family

• puslike

Related words

• puriform
• purulent
• suppurate
• foul
• putrid
• pyorrhoea
• puss

Usage notes

The Century Dictionary, as quoted by Etymonline, separates the terms for it: the forming of pus is suppuration, a collection of it inside solid tissue is an abscess, and an open suppurating sore is an ulcer.^[5] Dictionary.com lists puss as a word it can be confused with.^[11]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
8. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster