defecate

present singular third person defecates · participle present defecating · participle past defecated · past defecated · alternative defæcate · alternative defaecate

1. intransitiveTo excrete feces from one's bowels.
2. archaictransitiveTo pass (something) as excrement; to purge.
3. alsoarchaicfigurativelytransitiveTo clean (something) of dregs, impurities, etc.; to purify.

   Some are of opinion that such fat, standing waters make the best beer, and that seething doth defecate it […]

   1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, page 224

   2 more examples

   [I]f vve defæcate the notion from materiality, […] it vvill be as hard to apprehend, as that an empty vviſh ſhould remove Mountains: a ſuppoſition vvhich if realized, vvould relieve Siſyphus.

   1661, Joseph Glanvill, chapter III, in The Vanity of Dogmatizing: Or Confidence in Opinions. […], London: […] E. C[otes] for Henry Eversden […], →OCLC, page 22

   […] I ſhall add, that proſecuting a hint a happened to meet with in the diſcourſe of a wandering chymiſt, I practiſed a way ſo to defecate the dark and muddy oil of amber drawn per ſe, that a pretty proportion of it would come over ſo tranſparent and finely coloured, that the experiment did not a little pleaſe thoſe I ſhewed it to.

   1744, Robert Boyle with Thomas Birch, edited by Thomas Birch, The Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle: In Five Volumes : to which is Prefixed, the Life of the Author, volume 1, compilation of Certain phyſiological eſsays and other tracts written at diſtant times, and on ſeveral occaſions by the honourable Robert Boyle ; wherein ſome of the tracts are enlarged by experiments and the work is increaſed by the addition of a diſcourse about the abſolute reſt in bodies. by Robert Boyle, part VI: Certain Physiological Essays, and other tracts written at diſtant Times, eſsay 7: The Hiſtory of Fluidity and Firmneſs, the ſecond part: of Firmneſs, page 265

comparative more defecate · superlative most defecate · alternative defæcate · alternative defaecate

1. obsoleteFreed from pollutants, dregs, lees, etc.; refined; purified.

   Till the soul be defecate from the dregs of sense.

   1699, William Bates, Spiritual Perfection, unfolded and enforced