Word.ws English Dictionary

putrefying

putrefying is the present participle and gerund of putrefy.

Meaning of putrefy

Verb

putrefy (third-person singular simple present putrefies, present participle putrefying, simple past and past participle putrefied)

  1. To fester or rot and exude a fetid stench.
  2. To become filled with a pus-like or bile-like substance.
  3. To reach an advanced stage of decomposition.
    • In the Middle Ages, for instance, a recipe for sex stimulation required the putrefied flesh of a human corpse, together with both human and animal testes and ovaries, pimento, and alcohol.1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 14
  4. To become gangrenous.
  5. To make morbid, carious, or gangrenous.
    • to putrefy an ulcer or wound
  6. To corrupt; to make foul.
    • Private suits do putrefy the public good.1625, Francis [Bacon], “Of Suitors”, in The Essayes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret, →OCLC

Questions about putrefying

What is putrefying the present participle and gerund of?
Putrefying is the present participle and gerund of putrefy.

Words near putrefying in the dictionary

  1. putrefied
  2. putrefier
  3. putrefiers
  4. putrefies
  5. putrefy
  6. putrefying
  7. putresce
  8. putresced
  9. putrescein
  10. putrescence
  11. putrescences

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: putrefying (page history and authors); putrefy (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: “putrefying.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/putrefying. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.