suffuse

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin suffūsus, the past participle of suffundō (“to pour underneath or upon, overspread”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} formed from sub- (“under”), assimilated as suf-, and fundō (“to pour”),^[3][7][8] from Proto-Indo-European *gheu- (“to pour”).^[7][2] Barnhart thinks it probably also in part a back-formation from the earlier suffusion, which is borrowed from Latin suffūsiō (“a pouring out or over, spreading”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of tears or moisture, to overspread: 1590, in Spenser's The Faerie Queene, in the form suffused.^[5][3][4] Etymonline and Dictionary.com allow for a date in the 1580s.^[2][9]

Semantic evolution

Before the modern verb, Middle English had the noun suffusioun, recorded before 1398 in Trevisa for a cataract of the eye,^[3][10] and the verb suffunden in Chauliac, in a medical sense, for being affected.^[10][2] The modern verb began with moisture, then moved in 1728, in Thomson, to light, air and colour,^[5] the use that Johnson (1755) illustrates with Pope's "purple light" that will "suffuse the skies".^[11][4] Johnson's definition is "to spread over with something expansible, as with a vapour or a tincture".^[11] A figurative use, of qualities and feelings, is recorded from 1813, in Coleridge.^[5] The OED also has the literal sense of pouring a liquid over a surface from 1816,^[5] which the Shorter Oxford dates to the mid 18th century.^[6]

Timeline

• 1590 – of tears and moisture, to overspread.^[5][3][4]
• 1728 – of light, air, fire or colour.^[5]
• 1813 – in transferred and figurative use.^[5]
• 1816 – to pour a liquid over a surface.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To spread through or over something, as a fluid, colour or light does: A warm glow suffused the old kitchen.^[12][4][5]
2. To fill with a quality or feeling: a novel suffused with nostalgia.^[5][6]
3. To pour a liquid so that it spreads over a surface.^[4][5][6]

Word family

• suffusion
• suffusive
• unsuffused

Related words

• infuse
• found
• fuse
• effuse
• transfuse
• confuse

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ a b 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)
11. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins