effusion

Borrowed from Middle French effusion, from Latin effūsiō (“outpouring”). Displaced native Old English āgotennes.

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• Rhymes: -uːʒən

effusion (countable and uncountable, plural effusions)

1. A liquid outpouring.

   Antonym: infusion

   Coordinate terms: transfusion, perfusion

3. (chemistry, physics) Process of gases passing through a hole or holes considerably smaller than the mean free path of the gas molecules.
4. (figurative, by extension) An outpouring of speech or emotion.
   • 1930; George S. Kaufman, Morrie Ryskind, Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby; Animal Crackers, Paramount Pictures

     Captain Spaulding: My friends, I am highly gratified by this magnificent display of effusion […]

   • 1946, William Hatfield, Buffalo Jim, Oxford: Geoffrey Cumberlege, page 70:

     The housekeeper, a very decorative brunette of thirty-five with a pseudo-English accent, greeted him with a mixture of grateful effusion and condescending patronage.

5. (medicine) The seeping of fluid into a body cavity; the fluid itself.

   Hyponyms: hydrothorax, hemothorax

   Coordinate term: edema

   pleural effusion

Inherited from Middle French effusion, borrowed from Latin effusiōnem.

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effusion f (plural effusions)

1. effusion

• “effusion”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.