Word.ws English Dictionary

pursy

pursy adjective: out of breath; short of breath, especially due to fatness.

Adjective (1)

pursy (comparative pursier, superlative pursiest)

  1. Out of breath; short of breath, especially due to fatness.
    • now breathless wrong
      Shall sit and pant in your great chairs of ease,
      And pursy insolence shall break his wind
      With fear and horrid flight.c. 1605–1608 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Tymon of Athens”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
    • We now set off in pursuit of her, all but the farmer, who, being pretty fat and pursy, was not for running a race […]1796, Hannah More, The History of Mary Wood, London: J. Marshall & R. White, page 6
  2. Fat and short.
    • Now I will give you a Picture of this Wretch: She is a broad, squat, pursy, fat Thing, quite ugly, if any thing human can be so called […]1741, [Samuel Richardson], “Letter XXXI”, in Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: […] C[harles] Rivington, […]; and J. Osborn, […], →OCLC, page 146
    • […] the vicar […] was particularly fond of boys in general. Not so the doctor, a pursy little man with a terrific frown, who hated boys, especially little ones, with a very powerful hatred.1858, R. M. Ballantyne, chapter 1, in Martin Rattler, London: T. Nelson & Sons, published 1893, page 10

Adjective (2)

pursy (comparative pursier, superlative pursiest)

  1. Puckered.
    • So Aunt Bell sat down to table—a bony frame, with an anxious green eye, a pursy mouth, and a sweating sickness of bitter words, seeking to break forth at the earliest opportunity.1861, W. G. Wills, chapter 23, in Notice to Quit, volume 1, London: Hurst & Blackett, pages 242–243
    • The laundress has bangs
      And pursy lips
      And thin hips1954, Jack Kerouac, “51st Chorus”, in San Francisco Blues: The Book of Blues, Penguin, published 1995, page 52
  2. Purse-proud; vain about one's wealth.

pursy meaning in Urdu and Kannada

pursy in Urdu

جھری دار, موٹا, پھولا ہوا

pursy in Kannada

ದಮ್ಮು ಬರುವ, ಏದುವ, ಉಬ್ಬಸದ, ಪೀನದೇಹದ, ಬೊಜ್ಜು ಮೈಯ, ಸ್ಥೂಲಕಾಯವುಳ್ಳ

Examples of pursy in a sentence

  • ‘[…] People mutht be amuthed, Thquire, thomehow,’ continued Sleary, rendered more pursy than ever, by so much talking […]1854, Charles Dickens, chapter 6, in Hard Times. For These Times, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], →OCLC:
  • “Ah,” she pronounced, and took in Enoch with pursy violated eyes.1966, Cynthia Ozick, Trust, New York: New American Library, Part Four, 2, p. 413:

Forms of pursy

comparativepursier
superlativepursiest
alternative formpursive

Origin of pursy

From Middle English pursyf (“short of breath, asthmatic”), probably from Old French pousser (“to push; to breathe with difficulty”); see French poussif (“wheezy”).

From purse (“pucker”) + -y and purse (“small bag for carrying money”) + -y.

Words formed from pursy

Questions about pursy

What does pursy mean?
Pursy means out of breath; short of breath, especially due to fatness.
What is pursy in Urdu?
Pursy in Urdu is جھری دار, موٹا, پھولا ہوا. See Pursy meaning in Urdu.
How do you use pursy in a sentence?
‘[…] People mutht be amuthed, Thquire, thomehow,’ continued Sleary, rendered more pursy than ever, by so much talking […]
What part of speech is pursy?
Pursy is an adjective.

Words near pursy in the dictionary

  1. pursuitmeters
  2. pursuits
  3. pursuivant
  4. pursuivant at arms
  5. pursuivants
  6. pursy
  7. Purtee
  8. Purtees
  9. Purtell
  10. Purtells
  11. purtenance

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pursy (page history and authors); pursy (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); pursy (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “pursy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pursy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.