pus
- 1A whitish-yellow or yellow substance made up mainly of dead white blood cells and dead pus-forming bacteria, usually found at the site of a bacterial infection.
The abscess had filled with pus and had to be drained.
Doctors sent a sample of the pus to the lab to identify the bacteria.
Note
The body's fight against bacteria leaves this behind: white blood cells, mostly neutrophils, gather at an infection and die there with the bacteria they attack. Doctors call a walled-off pocket of it an abscess and a discharge containing it purulent. The word came straight from Latin pūs, which is why its plural, when one is needed, is the Latin pura.
- 2To give off or discharge pus.
Bites that pus or swell should be checked by a doctor.
The infected wound pussed for days before the antibiotics took effect.
Similarfester, weep, suppurate
Note
The verb doubles its s whenever an ending is added: a wound pusses, is pussing, has pussed. Because the verb itself is rare, the usual way round is to keep the noun and let another verb do the work: the wound is oozing pus, or discharging it.
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Origin
A learned borrowing from Latin pūs.