perspire
English edit
Etymology edit
Borrowed from Middle French perspirer and its source Latin perspīrō (“to breathe everywhere, blow constantly”), from per (“through”) + spīrō (“to breathe”); see spirit.
Pronunciation edit
Verb edit
perspire (third-person singular simple present perspires, present participle perspiring, simple past and past participle perspired)
- (transitive, intransitive) To emit (sweat or perspiration) through the skin's pores.
- Synonym: sweat
- I was perspiring freely after running the marathon.
- 2010, Susan C. Karant-Nunn, The Reformation of Feeling:
- He lists forty reasons, mainly metaphorical, why Christ perspired blood, and his peroration takes twenty-two pages in print.
- (intransitive) To be evacuated or excreted, or to exude, through the pores of the skin.
- A fluid perspires.
- (transitive, intransitive, rare) To cause (someone) to sweat.
- Synonym: sweat
- 2001, Salman Rushdie, Fury: A Novel, London: Jonathan Cape, →ISBN, page 3:
- Outside his window a long, humid summer, the first hot season of the third millennium, baked and perspired.
Related terms edit
Translations edit
sweat — see sweat
Further reading edit
- “perspire”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- “perspire”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.