- to secrete a salty, watery fluid from the sweat glands of the skin, especially when very warm as a result of strenuous exertion; sweat.
- to emit through pores; exude.
Origin of perspire
Examples from the Web for perspiring
Sometimes, when perspiring heavily and feeling warm Breman would fear the worst.The Original Ebola Hunter
September 14, 2014
He didn't see that she was perspiring, worn out by her struggle with the carpet.Life and Death of Harriett Frean
He was a small, plump man and his face was always red and perspiring.The Second Voice
Perspiring from every pore, we labour manfully on to the bitter end.Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2)
William Delisle Hay
A crumpled, perspiring wreck, he boarded the train bound for the mountains.
Galusha passed his shaking hand across his perspiring forehead.
- to secrete or exude (perspiration) through the pores of the skin
Word Origin and History for perspiring
1640s, "to evaporate through the pores," a back-formation from perspiration and in part from Latin perspirare "to breathe, to blow constantly" (see perspiration). Meaning "to sweat" is a polite usage attested from 1725. Medical men tried to maintain a distinction between "sensible" (sweat) and "insensible" perspiration:
[I]t is sufficient for common use to observe, that perspiration is that insensible discharge of vapour from the whole surface of the body and the lungs which is constantly going on in a healthy state; that it is always natural and always salutary; that sweat, on the contrary, is an evacuation, which never appears without some uncommon effort, or some disease to the system, that it weakens and relaxes, and is so far from coinciding with perspiration, that it obstructs and checks it. [Charles White, "A Treatise on the Management of Pregnant and Lying-in Women," London, 1791]
Related: Perspired; perspiring.
- To excrete perspiration through the pores of the skin.