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The Latin word suffendere, ancestor to suffuse by way of Latin suffūsus, has various meanings that shed light on our modern word, among them "to pour on or in (as an addition)" and "to fill with a liquid, color, or light that wells up from below." It’s no surprise, then, that suffuse refers to the action of fluid or light spreading over or through something, as when light fills a dark room when you crack open a door. Suffundere is a blend of the prefix sub- ("under" or "beneath") and the verb fundere ("to pour" or "to send forth"). Other English verbs related to fundere continue the theme of pouring or spreading: diffuse ("to pour out and spread freely"), effuse ("to pour or flow out"), transfuse ("to cause to pass from one to another"), and the verb fuse itself when it's used to mean "to meld or join."
Synonyms
Examples of suffuse in a Sentence
Joe Reid, Vulture, 21 Sep. 2024
For one thing, violent imagery suffuses even normal political rhetoric.
—Washington Post Staff, Washington Post, 14 July 2024
When a public figure sits across from a podcast host to embark on a purportedly shapeless, stream-of-consciousness chat suffused with crude jokes and senseless tangents, an odd alchemy occurs: the speakers begin to sound like pals bantering at a pre-game, with the listener as a silent confidant.
—Brady Brickner-Wood, The New Yorker, 10 Oct. 2024
The growing sweetness that suffuses Stanton’s performance, his combination of innocence and anguish are breathtaking.
—Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times, 13 Sep. 2024
See all Example Sentences for suffuse 
Dictionary Entries Near suffuse
Cite this Entry
“Suffuse.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/suffuse. Accessed 22 Nov. 2024.
Copy CitationKids Definition
suffuse
verb
Medical Definition
suffuse
transitive verb
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