putrid

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English putrid, also putred and the Latinate putrida,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French putride,^[2][4][5] a form Barnhart and the OED also call Middle French,^[3][6] and directly borrowed from Latin putridus (“rotten, decaying, foul”).^[6][2][7][4] The Latin adjective comes from putreō (“to rot”), from puter (“rotten”), also putris,^[6][7][4] and is related to pūteō (“to stink”).^[4][3][8] The whole group goes back to Proto-Indo-European *pu- (“to rot, stink”),^[4] the base of the Latin pūs that gave pus.^[6][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of a fever, caused by putrefaction of the humours: feuer putrida, before 1398, in Trevisa's Bartholomaeus,^[2][3] which agrees with Etymonline's late 14th century.^[4] The OED's first record of the general sense, rotten, is from before 1425, in a translation of Guy de Chauliac's Grande Chirurgie, with a possible earlier instance in a customs record of 1420–1 for dates putrid.^[6][2]

Semantic evolution

The word entered English through medicine, in the name of putrid fever, an old name for typhus, which was supposed to come from the putrefaction of the bodily humours.^[4][7] Johnson (1755) gave "rotten; corrupt" and also a definition of the fever.^[10] From 1610 it could describe anything tainted with the products of decay, and by 1628 it was figurative, for what is morally corrupt or decadent.^[6] It then weakened further into colloquial disparagement, for anything contemptible or dreadful.^{[6][7][8][11]} A short-lived sense "loose, crumbling", of soil, recorded from 1656 to 1792, first rendered Virgil's putris, a Latin adjective that could mean crumbling as well as rotten.^[6][3] The spelling putri'd shows that the word was apparently taken at times for a past participle.^[6]

Timeline

• before 1398 – of a fever, caused by putrefaction: feuer putrida.^[2][3] The OED's first record of the medical sense is from about 1551.^[6]
• before 1425 – in a state of decomposition, rotten.^[6][2][3]
• 1610 – tainted with the products of decay, foul.^[6]
• 1628 – figurative, morally corrupt, decadent.^[6]
• 1656 – of soil, loose, crumbling (obsolete by 1792).^[6]

Meanings

Adjective

1. In a state of decomposition; rotten: a bucket of putrid fish.^[11][8][6]
2. Of or caused by putrefaction; foul-smelling: A putrid stench rose from the drain.^[11][8][6]
3. Morally corrupt; depraved.^[11][8][6]
4. (informal) Very bad, contemptible or worthless: We sat through a putrid play.^[11][8][6]
5. (medicine) Of a disease, attributed to putrefaction or giving off a foul odour.^[6][7]
6. (obsolete, 1656–1792) Of soil, loose and friable.^[6][7]

Word family

• putridity
• putridly
• unputrid

Related words

• pus
• foul
• putrefy
• putrefaction
• potpourri

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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 e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ 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
8. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins