Pursy
adj ·Uncommon ·College level
Definitions
- 1 Out of breath; short of breath, especially due to fatness.
"now breathless wrong Shall sit and pant in your great chairs of ease, And pursy insolence shall break his wind With fear and horrid flight."
- 2 Puckered.
"So Aunt Bell sat down to table—a bony frame, with an anxious green eye, a pursy mouth, and a sweating sickness of bitter words, seeking to break forth at the earliest opportunity."
- 3 Fat and short.
"Now I will give you a Picture of this Wretch: She is a broad, squat, pursy, fat Thing, quite ugly, if any thing human can be so called […]"
- 4 Purse-proud; vain about one's wealth.
- 1 breathing laboriously or convulsively wordnet
Example
More examples"now breathless wrong Shall sit and pant in your great chairs of ease, And pursy insolence shall break his wind With fear and horrid flight."
Etymology
From Middle English pursyf (“short of breath, asthmatic”), probably from Old French pousser (“to push; to breathe with difficulty”); see French poussif (“wheezy”).
From purse (“pucker”) + -y and purse (“small bag for carrying money”) + -y.
Related phrases
More for "pursy"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.