Continuing with my posts about new words – here is another one which is not only nice to look at, but seems to fit in shape and sound with its definition.
The root is suppurate – to form or discharge pus.
Here is the sentence, again from The Orchard Keeper. This is part of a description of someone dragging a body through the woods:
“His breath came back and he sat up a little, not hurting, only conscious of his hand hooked around the suppurant flesh.”
Does it not make you want to clear your throat and grimace, to imagine touching ‘suppurant flesh’? Even before looking up the word I had some idea from the context and the feel of it. It is a word whose utterance somehow casts a shadow of its meaning.
Jonas David 