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profuse

UK/pɹəˈfjuːs/US/pɹəˈfjuːs/
adjectiveC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,817 of 15,258leans written

Profuse means pouring out so freely that it seems more than enough. Profuse apologies, profuse sweating, profuse thanks.

It attaches to a small set of nouns — apologies, thanks, bleeding, sweating — and in the polite ones it hints that the flow is excessive. In medicine profuse bleeding is a description of quantity and a call to act. The Latin means poured forth.

Definitions of profuse

  1. 1adjectiveprofusePouring out so freely that it seems more than enough.C1

    “The cut on his head caused profuse bleeding, and the towel was soon soaked.”

profuse is a quality of abundance.

Where it comes from

Latin profusus is the past participle of profundere, to pour forth — pro, forth, plus fundere, to pour.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *per-

  2. Latin

    profusus

  3. English, today

    profuse

From Latin profusus.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

profuse in the wild

  • The island was named by fishermen who thought the profuse seaweed at one end made it look like the "smutty nose" of some vast sea animal.

    Smuttynose Island

  • Prosperity often produces profuse wealth including other factors which can be profusely wealthy in all degrees, such as happiness and health.

    Prosperity

  • The breed is known for its small size and profuse frilled feathers.

    Chinese Owl pigeon

  • So profuse and varied, indeed, is our use of these words that it is not easy to define just what we mean by them.

    How We Think

  • Subshrubs with profuse flowering, they are amenable to containers, so a number of cultivars and hybrid cultivars have been developed for the garden trade.

    Jamesbrittenia

1 / 2

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

From Project Gutenberg, public domain. These sentences are from real books, shown to illustrate the word at work.

Related words

the profusus family

profusely

profuse — used about once every 81,824 pages · #14,817 · point at the bar for the others