putrefy

present singular third person putrefies · participle present putrefying · participle past putrefied · past putrefied · alternative putrify

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

   1 more example

   They would but stink, and putrefy the air.

   c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene vii]