pus
UK[pʌs]US[pʌs]
n
A thick yellowish or greenish liquid produced in infected tissue, consisting of dead white blood cells and bacteria with tissue debris and serum.
Etymology
The word 'pus' entered English in the late 14th century, borrowed directly from the Latin 'pus', which carried the same meaning of foul matter from a sore or abscess. The Latin term is derived from the Proto-Indo-European root pu-, meaning 'to rot, decay', which is also the source of related words like 'putrid' and 'suppurate'. This etymological journey illustrates a direct and logical semantic transfer, where the ancient concept of rotting material evolved specifically to name the visible product of infection in living tissue. The word's simplicity and phonetic resemblance across languages underscore its fundamental and long-standing role in medical description.
Analysis
The word is a simplex loanword from Latin. It does not contain separable morphemes in its modern English form.
Examples
The doctor lanced the boil to drain the pus.
The presence of pus is a clear sign of a bacterial infection.
The wound must be kept clean to prevent the formation of pus.