pure
adjEtymology
From Middle English pure, pur, from Old French pur, from Latin pūrus (“clean, free from dirt or filth, unmixed, plain”), from Proto-Indo-European *pewH- (“to cleanse, purify”). Displaced native Middle English lutter (“pure, clear, sincere”) (from Old English hlūtor, hluttor), Middle English skere (“pure, sheer, clear”) (from Old English scǣre and Old Norse skǣr), Middle English schir (“clear, pure”) (from Old English scīr), Middle English smete, smeate (“pure, refined”) (from Old English smǣte; compare Old English mǣre (“pure”)).
Definitions
Free of flaws or imperfections
Free of flaws or imperfections; unsullied.
- Such was the origin of a friendship as warm and pure as any that ancient or modern history records.
Free of foreign material or pollutants.
- A guinea is pure gold if it has in it no alloy.
- As for the rest, the air here is said to be purer than elsewhere in Ireland; the water of the Nore is beautifully transparent; and the bogless state of the land helps out the rhyme.
- "Hetch Hetchy water is the purest, wholly unpolluted, and forever unpollutable."
Free of immoral behavior or qualities
Free of immoral behavior or qualities; clean.
- Laye hondes sodenly on no man nether be part taker of wother mens synnes. Kepe thy silfe pure.
›+ 11 more definitionsshow fewer
Mere
Mere; that and that only.
- That idea is pure madness!
Done for its own sake instead of serving another branch of science.
- The [Isaac] Newton that emerges from the [unpublished] manuscripts is far from the popular image of a rational practitioner of cold and pure reason. The architect of modern science was himself not very modern. He was obsessed with alchemy.
Of a single, simple sound or tone
Of a single, simple sound or tone; said of some vowels and the unaspirated consonants.
Without harmonics or overtones
Without harmonics or overtones; not harsh or discordant.
Having no side effects.
- a pure method
A lot of.
- Well when ah's youngah, ah'd just light a candle rahn de dinna table play pure crazy 8s and spades vif my brotha til we lot dozed off...
to a great extent or degree
to a great extent or degree; extremely; exceedingly.
- You’re pure busy.
- I just get pure shy with the interview cats.
To hit (the ball) completely cleanly and accurately.
- Tiger Woods pured his first drive straight down the middle of the fairway.
To cleanse
To cleanse; to refine.
One who, or that which, is pure.
- Took a drop of the pure, to keep my spirits from sinking, […]
Alternative form of puer (“dung (e.g. of dogs)”).
- […] Dogs'-dung is called ‘Pure’, from its cleansing and purifying properties.
- […] surely there was something better for him than chasing the pure (footnote: A term, technically speaking, for dog muck, much prized by the tanneries.) […]
The neighborhood
- synonymchaste
- synonymcherry
- synonymclean
- synonymflawless
- synonymhalal
- synonymideal
- synonymimmaculate
- synonymkosher
- synonymmere
- synonymnatural
- synonymperfect
- synonympristine
- antonymadulterated
- antonymcontaminated
- antonymdefiled
- antonymdenatured
- antonymdirtied/dirty
- antonymfilthy
- antonymflawed
- antonymharam
- antonymimpure
- antonympolluted
- antonymsullied
- antonymtainted
- neighborpurification
- neighborpurify
- neighborpurism
- neighborpurist
- neighborpuritan
- neighborpuritanism
- neighborpurity
- neighbornon-mixture
- neighborpreserved
- neighborenantiopure
- neighborhyperpure
- neighborimmunopure
Derived
as pure as the driven snow, fullblood, pure air, pure and simple, pure as driven snow, pure as the driven snow, pureblood, pureblooded, pure blue, purebred, pure-bred, purebreed, pure cancer, pure collector, pure country, pure customer, pure democracy, pure ego, pure endowment, pure evil, pure finder, pure gatherer, pure good, pure-hearted, pure imaginary number, pure-impure, pure laine, pure land, pure mathematics, pure name, pureness, pure O, pure-out, pureplay, pure-play, pure quartz, pure quill, pure salvage, pure science, pure sex · +4 more
Vish — recursive loop
A definitional loop anchored at pure. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.
A definitional loop anchored at pure. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.
8 hops · closes at pure
curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA