putrefy

• putrify

From Middle French putréfier.

• IPA^(key): /ˈpjutɹəfaɪ/

• Audio (US):

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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.
   • 1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 14:

     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.

4. To become gangrenous.
5. To make morbid, carious, or gangrenous.

   to putrefy an ulcer or wound

6. To corrupt; to make foul.
   • 1625, Francis [Bacon], “Of Suitors”, in The Essayes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret, →OCLC:

     Private suits do putrefy the public good.

   • 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]:

     They would but stink, and putrefy the air.

• decay
• fester
• rot

• Gangrene on Wikipedia.Wikipedia