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pure

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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See also: puré, purè, purê, and püré

English

Etymology 1

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”)).

Pronunciation

Adjective

pure (comparative purer or more pure, superlative purest or most pure)

  1. Free of flaws or imperfections; unsullied.
  3. Free of foreign material or pollutants.
    • 1725, Isaac Watts, Logick: Or, The Right Use of Reason in the Enquiry after Truth, […], 2nd edition, London: […] John Clark and Richard Hett, […], Emanuel Matthews, […], and Richard Ford, […], published 1726, →OCLC:
      A guinea is pure gold if it has in it no alloy.
    • 1837, Leitch Ritchie, Ireland Picturesque and Romantic, volume 1, page 225:
      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.
    • 1908 January 4, John Muir, “The Hetch Hetchy Valley”, in Sierra Club Bulletin‎[1], volume VI, number 4:
      "Hetch Hetchy water is the purest, wholly unpolluted, and forever unpollutable."
  4. Free of immoral behavior or qualities; clean.
  5. Mere; that and that only.
    That idea is pure madness!
  6. (of a branch of science) Done for its own sake instead of serving another branch of science.
    • 2014 June 21, “Magician’s brain”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8892:
      The [Isaac] Newton that emerges from the [unpublished] manuscripts is far from the popular image of a rational practitioner of cold and pure reason.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.
  7. (phonetics) Of a single, simple sound or tone; said of some vowels and the unaspirated consonants.
  8. (of sound) Without harmonics or overtones; not harsh or discordant.
  9. (Bermuda, slang) A lot of.
    • 2013 April 12, “Exclusive: Meet Derpuntae - Bermuda's first meme”, in The Bermuda Sun‎[2], archived from the original on 2022-12-12:
      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...
Synonyms
Antonyms
Derived terms
Descendants
  • → Welsh: piwr
Translations
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Adverb

pure (not comparable)

  1. (Liverpool, Scotland) to a great extent or degree; extremely; exceedingly.
    You’re pure busy.
    • 1996, Trainspotting (film)
      I just get pure shy with the interview cats.
Translations

Verb

pure (third-person singular simple present pures, present participle puring, simple past and past participle pured)

  1. (golf) To hit (the ball) completely cleanly and accurately.
    Tiger Woods pured his first drive straight down the middle of the fairway.
  2. (transitive, obsolete) To cleanse; to refine.

Noun

pure (countable and uncountable, plural pures)

  1. One who, or that which, is pure.
    • 1845, The Lancet, page 187:
      ... the establishment of an inferior College, and the consequent connexion of the many thousands of British practitioners in medicine and surgery with a subordinate institution, and one that should be subservient to the government of the pures.
    • c. 1870, D. K. Gavan, Rocky Road to Dublin:
      Took a drop of the pure, to keep my spirits from sinking, […]
    • 1998, Christopher Leigh Connery, The Empire of the Text: Writing and Authority in Early Imperial China, Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, page 30:
      All interpretive frames will impose their categories on the object of historical analysis, and I am not proposing that this narrative of the "pures"; be rejected in favor of some phantasmatic framework that claims to derive more purely from the sources themselves. I will show in chapter 3 that, since the "pures" possibly did not even exist […]

Etymology 2

Pronunciation

Noun

pure (uncountable)

  1. Alternative form of puer (“dung (e.g. of dogs)”)
    • 1851, H. Mayhew, London Labour and the London poor, vII. 142/1:
      […] Dogs'-dung is called ‘Pure’, from its cleansing and purifying properties.
    • 2001, Wendy Lawton, chapter 8, in The Tinker's Daughter:
      Mary smelled the rancid odor of the tannery on the right side of the road. […]
      "What is that, Mary?" Jake asked.
      "'Tis a bag for collecting pure. That is going to be your job, Jake. You are to collect pure."
      "Pure? What is pure?"
      "Pure is another word for dung," Mary answered.
    • 2013, Terry Pratchett, Raising Steam, page 28:
      […] surely there was something better for him than chasing the pure (footnote: A term, technically speaking, for dog muck, much prized by the tanneries.) […]

Further reading

Anagrams

Danish

Etymology 1

From Latin pūre, the adverb of pūrus (“clean, pure”); or the definite form of pur (“pure”).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /puːrə/, [ˈpʰuːɐ̯]

Adjective

pure

  1. complete
  2. (adverbial) completely
Inflection
Inflection of pure
positive comparative superlative
indefinite common singular pure — —2
indefinite neuter singular pure — —2
plural pure — —2
definite attributive1 pure — —

1 When an adjective is applied predicatively to something definite,
the corresponding "indefinite" form is used.
2 The "indefinite" superlatives may not be used attributively.

Etymology 2

From French purée (“puree”).

Alternative forms

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /pyre/, [pʰyˈʁæ]

Noun

pure c (singular definite pureen, plural indefinite pureer)

  1. puree
Inflection
Declension of pure
common
gender 		Singular Plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
nominative pure pureen pureer pureerne
genitive pures pureens pureers pureernes

Etymology 3

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /puːrə/, [ˈpʰuːɐ̯]

Adjective

pure

  1. definite of pur
  2. plural of pur

Esperanto

Adverb

pure

  1. purely

Finnish

Verb

pure

  1. inflection of purra:
    1. indicative present connegative
    2. second-person singular imperative present/present connegative

Anagrams

French

Pronunciation

Adjective

pure

  1. feminine singular of pur

Anagrams

German

Pronunciation

Adjective

pure

  1. inflection of pur:
    1. strong/mixed nominative/accusative feminine singular
    2. strong nominative/accusative plural
    3. weak nominative all-gender singular
    4. weak accusative feminine/neuter singular

Italian

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈpu.re/
  • Rhymes: -ure
  • Hyphenation: pù‧re

Etymology 1

Adjective

pure

  1. feminine plural of puro

Etymology 2

From Latin pūrē, the adverb of pūrus.[1]

Adverb

pure

  1. too, also, as well
    Synonym: anche
  2. well, surely
  3. please, by all means
  4. if you like; if you want (etc.)
    Parli pure (with third-person subjunctive) ― let him speak if he likes
    Parla pure (with imperative) ― Speak if you like
    Lei parli pure (with formal subjunctive-imperative) ― Speak if you like

Conjunction

pure

  1. even though, even if, although
  2. nevertheless

References

  1. ^ Angelo Prati, "Vocabolario Etimologico Italiano", Torino, 1951; headword pure

Anagrams

Latin

Etymology 1

From pūrus (“clean; pure”) and -e (“-ly, -ily”).

Adverb

pūrē (comparative pūrius, superlative pūrissimē)

  1. clearly, brightly, cleanly
  2. correctly, faultlessly, perfectly, purely
    loqui pure
    to speak correctly
Synonyms

Etymology 2

Noun

pūre

  1. ablative singular of pūs

References

  • “pure”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • “pure”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
  • Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎[3], London: Macmillan and Co.
    • (ambiguous) logic, dialectic: dialectica (-ae or -orum) (pure Latin disserendi ratio et scientia)
    • (ambiguous) astronomy: astrologia (pure Latin sidera, caelestia)

Anagrams

Middle English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Old French pur, from Latin pūrus.

Pronunciation

Adjective

pure (comparative purer, superlative purest)

  1. pure, unadulterated, undiluted, untarnished
  2. entire, total, all
  3. perfect, wonderful, unflawed
  4. morally clean, pure, or upstanding
  5. chaste
  6. true, real, genuine, not counterfeit
  7. clear, obvious, simple

Descendants

References

Norwegian Bokmål

Noun

pure m (definite singular pureen, indefinite plural pureer, definite plural pureene)

  1. alternative spelling of puré

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology 1

Pronunciation

Noun

pure m (definite singular pureen, indefinite plural purear, definite plural pureane)

  1. alternative spelling of puré

Etymology 2

Pronunciation

Adjective

pure

  1. definite singular of pur
  2. plural of pur

Rapa Nui

Etymology

From Proto-Polynesian *pule.

Noun

pure

  1. cowrie

Scots

Adjective

pure (comparative mair pure, superlative maist pure)

  1. completely, utterly
    The auld man wis pure ragin!
    The old man was absolutely furious!

Swahili

Pronunciation

Noun

pure class IX (plural pure class X)

  1. githeri (traditional Kenyan meal of maize and beans mixed and boiled together)
    Synonym: kande

Swedish

Adjective

pure

  1. definite natural masculine singular of pur

Anagrams

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