Perspire

//pəˈspaɪə(ɹ)// verb

verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To emit (sweat or perspiration) through the skin's pores. ambitransitive

    "I was perspiring freely after running the marathon."

  2. 2
    excrete perspiration through the pores in the skin wordnet
  3. 3
    To be evacuated or excreted, or to exude, through the pores of the skin. intransitive

    "A fluid perspires."

  4. 4
    To cause (someone) to sweat. ambitransitive, rare

    "Outside his window a long, humid summer, the first hot season of the third millennium, baked and perspired."

Synonyms

All synonyms
sweatsweatexudemeltsudateswelter

Example

More examples

"People are beginning to perspire."

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French perspirer and its source Latin perspīrō (“to breathe everywhere, blow constantly”), from per (“through”) + spīrō (“to breathe”); see spirit.

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