perspire
verbUK /pəˈspaɪə(ɹ)/ · CA, US /pɚˈspaɪɹ/
Etymology Borrowed from Middle French perspirer and its source Latin perspīrō (“to breathe everywhere, blow constantly”), from per (“through”) + spīrō (“to breathe”); see spirit.
1
Ambitransitive To emit (sweat or perspiration) through the skin's pores.
- I was perspiring freely after running the marathon.
- He lists forty reasons, mainly metaphorical, why Christ perspired blood, and his peroration takes twenty-two pages in print.2010, Susan C. Karant-Nunn, The Reformation of Feeling:
2
To be evacuated or excreted, or to exude, through the pores of the skin.
- A fluid perspires.
3
Ambitransitive, Rare To cause (someone) to sweat.
- Outside his window a long, humid summer, the first hot season of the third millennium, baked and perspired.2001, Salman Rushdie, Fury: A Novel, London: Jonathan Cape, →ISBN, page 3:
- We shook hands, he looked surprised to see me topless. I stimulated his mind. ¶ “Nice to meet you. My workout jogging perspired me a lot, so I removed the T-shirt.”2016, Pradip Chauhan, Love Stories, New Delhi: Educreation Publishing, →ISBN, page 48:
- Derived terms
- perspirability, perspirable, perspiry
- Related terms
- conspire, inspire, perspiration, respire, transpire