perspire

Borrowed from Old French perspirer, from Latin perspirare (“to breathe everywhere, blow constantly”), from per (“through”) + spirare (“to breath”); see spirit.

• Audio (US)

  (file)

perspire (third-person singular simple present perspires, present participle perspiring, simple past and past participle perspired)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To emit (sweat or perspiration) through the skin's pores.

   I was perspiring freely after running the marathon.

   • 2010, Susan C. Karant-Nunn, The Reformation of Feeling

     He lists forty reasons, mainly metaphorical, why Christ perspired blood, and his peroration takes twenty-two pages in print.

2. (intransitive) To be evacuated or excreted, or to exude, through the pores of the skin.

   A fluid perspires.

• sweat

• conspire
• inspire
• perspiration
• respire
• transpire

• perspire in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• perspire in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911