transfuse

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English transfusen,^[2][3] borrowed from Latin trānsfūsus,^[4][5][2] the past participle of trānsfundō (“to pour from one container to another”),^[4][5][6] from trāns- (“across”) and fundō (“to pour”),^[6][4][5] from a nasalized form of Proto-Indo-European *gheu- (“to pour”).^[5][3] The Latin verb is also the source of fuse and found.^[7][8][9] Middle English also had transfounden directly from the Latin verb, about 1400, in the sense "to transmit, impart",^[5] and the OED compares French transfuser, recorded in the 17th and 18th centuries.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

To pour out: probably before 1425, in a translation of Chauliac's Grande Chirurgie.^[2][4] The OED's first quotation, about 1425 in the life of Mary of Oignies, has the figurative sense of making something flow from one to another.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The figurative sense, to transmit or instil, is as old as the literal one in English and has outlasted it: the OED first quotes the plain pouring of a liquid from one vessel to another only in 1601, in Holland's Pliny.^[6] Johnson (1755) gave only that literal definition,^[10] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged now labels it archaic and Collins rare.^[8][11] The medical sense came with the experiments of the Royal Society, as Weekley notes after Phillips.^[12] Barnhart records the verb of blood in 1666, probably as a back-formation from transfusion, which had that sense from 1643;^[4] the OED's first quotation is from the Philosophical Transactions of 1667,^[6] and Etymonline has the 1660s.^[5] From 1897 the verb could also take the patient as its object.^[6][13]

Timeline

• before 1425 – to pour out.^[2][4]
• c. 1425 – to cause to flow from one to another; to transmit, instil.^[6][13]
• 1601 – to pour a liquid from one vessel into another.^[6]
• 1666 – to transfer blood into the veins of another person or animal.^[4] The OED's first quotation is from 1667.^[6]
• 1897 – to treat a person with a transfusion.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To transfer blood or another fluid into a vein or blood vessel.^[11][6]
2. To give a transfusion to a patient: The surgeon transfused him twice during the operation.^[11][6]
3. To cause to pass from one person or thing to another; to instil: She transfused her love of music into her pupils.^[8][6][13]
4. To spread through; to permeate: Morning light transfused the whole valley.^[11][8]
5. (archaic) To transfer a liquid by pouring it from one vessel to another.^[8][6][11]

Word family

• transfuser
• transfusible
• untransfused
• transfusive
• transfusable

Related words

• transfusion
• fuse
• found
• infuse
• confuse
• trans-

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 The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ 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
7. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e 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
12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press