sudorific

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English[edit]

WOTD – 30 April 2018

Etymology[edit]

Perspiration, or sweat, on a forearm. A substance that is sudorific produces sweating.

From New Latin sudorificus, from sūdor (“sweat”)[1] (from Proto-Indo-European *sweyd- (“sweat; to sweat”)) + -ificus (from Proto-Italic *-fakos (“suffix forming adjectives that denote bringing or making”), ultimately related to Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to do, put, place”)).

Pronunciation[edit]

Adjective[edit]

sudorific (comparative more sudorific, superlative most sudorific)

  1. In a state of perspiration; covered in sweat; sudoriferous, sweaty.
    Synonym: (dated) asweat
    • c. 1751, Roger Lonsdale, quoting Charles Burney, “Childhood and First Years in London, 1726–51”, in Dr. Charles Burney: A Literary Biography, Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, published 1965 (1986 printing), →ISBN, page 35:
      [...] I took my leave of them, & 'ran like a Lamp-lighter', the rest of the way to the Theatre; and in a most violent perspiration, clambered into the Shilling Gallery, where scarcely I cd gain admission, the rest of the House being extremely crowded, wch did not diminish the sudorific state of my person.
    • [1873], W[illiam] S[tarbuck] Mayo, chapter XVII, in Never Again (The Library of Favourite Authors, British and Foreign; I), London: Ward, Lock, & Tyler, Warwick House, Paternoster Row, →OCLC, page 192:
      Fear, the product of guilt, is a true night-plant. Like some of those gigantic fungi the botanists tell of, it springs up in the dark, and in an hour of restless tossing, sudorific, horripilating wretchedness, canopies our bed with a phantom toad-stool of gigantic size. The load that the conscience can jauntily stagger under in the broad light of day, [...] will, in the gloom and silence of the night, wear its bearer to his knees.
  2. (chiefly pharmacology) That produces sweating. [from early 17th c.]
    Synonym: diaphoretic
    • 1848, L. Tanquerel des Planches, “Treatment”, in Samuel L[uther] Dana, transl., Lead Diseases: A Treatise from the French of L. Tanquerel des Planches, with Notes and Additions on the Use of Lead Pipe and Its Substitutes, Lowell, Mass.: Daniel Bixby and Company, →OCLC, page 152:
      The treatment of the "Charity [Hôpital de la Charité, Paris]," as administered now, consists in an assemblage of numerous substances endowed with different properties. It is as follows: First day, cassia water; simple sudorific ptisan, purgative clyster in the morning, anodyne clyster in the evening, theriaca one ounce, opium 1 gr.
    • 1872, Charles Darwin, “Surprise—Astonishment—Fear—Horror”, in The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, →OCLC, page 290:
      That the skin is much affected under the sense of great fear, we see in the marvellous and inexplicable manner in which perspiration immediately exudes from it. This exudation is all the more remarkable, as the surface is then cold, and hence the term a cold sweat; whereas, the sudorific glands are properly excited into action when the surface is heated.
    • 1955, Ian Cumming, “The Wisdom of Our Ancestors”, in Helvetius: His Life and Place in the History of Educational Thought (International Library of Sociology and Social Reconstruction; Sociological Approach to the Study of History), London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, →OCLC; reprinted as Helvetius: His Life and Place in the History of Educational Thought (The International Library of Sociology), London: Routledge, 2001, →ISBN, page 1:
      The fortunes of the Helvetius family [i.e., the family of Johann Friedrich Schweitzer] were established firmly upon the sudorific, expectorant and emetic qualities of the root of ipecacuanha.

Alternative forms[edit]

Translations[edit]

in a state of perspiration — see sweaty

Noun[edit]

sudorific (plural sudorifics)

  1. (pharmacology) A medicine that produces sweating.
    • 1770, Thomas Percival, “Essay I. The Empiric.”, in Essays Medical and Experimental on the Following Subjects, viz. I. The Empiric. II. The Dogmatic. Or, Arguments For and Against the Use of Theory and Reasoning in Physick. III. Experiments and Observations on Astringents and Bitters. IV. On the Uses and Operations of Blisters. V. On the Resemblance between Chyle and Milk, London: Printed for T. Lowndes, No. 77, in Fleet-street, →OCLC, pages 36–37:
      [A]s it was obſerved that acute diſtempers are ſometimes terminated by a critical ſweat, it was concluded that the moſt powerful ſudorifics were the beſt means of accompliſhing this deſirable end. This gave riſe to the deſtructive and fatal practice, which ſoon became univerſal, of adminiſtering heating remedies in diſeaſes of an inflammatory nature: […]
    • 1819, Edward Dodwell, chapter VI, in A Classical and Topographical Tour through Greece, during the Years 1801, 1805, and 1806. [...] In Two Volumes, volume II, London: Printed for Rodwell and Martin, New Bond-Street, →OCLC, page 228:
      The whole of this hill is covered with the wild sage, the salvia pomifera, […] It enters into the materia medica of the modern Greeks, and is taken as tea, and used as a sudorific in feverish cases.
    • 1895, Ivan Turgenev, “The District Doctor”, in Constance Garnett, transl., A Sportsman’s Sketches [...] Translated from the Russian (The Novels of Ivan Turgenev; VIII), volume I, New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, page 56:
      Fortunately the fever attacked me in the district town at the inn; I sent for the doctor. In half-an-hour the district doctor appeared, a thin, dark-haired man of middle height. He prescribed me the usual sudorific, ordered a mustard-plaster to be put on, very deftly slid a five-rouble note up his sleeve, coughing drily and looking away as he did so, and then was getting up to go home, but somehow fell into talk and remained.

Alternative forms[edit]

Translations[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ “sudorific”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading[edit]

Romanian[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Borrowed from French sudorifique.

Adjective[edit]

sudorific m or n (feminine singular sudorifică, masculine plural sudorifici, feminine and neuter plural sudorifice)

  1. sudorific

Declension[edit]

Declension of sudorific
singular plural
masculine neuter feminine masculine neuter feminine
nominative/
accusative 		indefinite sudorific sudorifică sudorifici sudorifice
definite sudorificul sudorifica sudorificii sudorificele
genitive/
dative 		indefinite sudorific sudorifice sudorifici sudorifice
definite sudorificului sudorificei sudorificilor sudorificelor
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