Deterge

verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To clean (especially a wound) of undesirable material. transitive

    "Nature to attenuate, open, deterge, and dissolve; and Milk and Water, and Seeds, to cool, nourish, and balmify"

  2. 2
    wipe away; to wash off or out, cleanse; chiefly in medical use: to clear away foul matter from the body wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
bleachbowdlerizecleanclean outclean upcleanse

Example

More examples

"Nature to attenuate, open, deterge, and dissolve; and Milk and Water, and Seeds, to cool, nourish, and balmify"

Etymology

From French déterger, from Latin dētergēre, from dē- + tergēre.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.