Ablute

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To wash or cleanse oneself with water, particularly as part of a religious or ritual purification
2. Rarely used for cleansing the body with water in a ceremonial or devotional manner before prayer
3. Archaic verb meaning to bathe or purify with water as a sacred or prescribed act of cleansing

Etymology: "Ablute" is a back-formation from "ablution," meaning that English speakers started with the longer noun and then carved a verb out of it, as if the noun had been built from a verb in the first place. "Ablution" itself came into English from Latin "ablutio," a noun formed from "abluere," meaning "to wash away," built from "ab" ("away") and "luere" ("to wash"). Its original sense was the washing of the body or of objects, and in religious contexts it came to mean ritual washing. The verb is therefore a second-hand creation: the noun was the older and more established word, and the verb was derived from it by removing the noun ending. Back-formations of this kind are common in English, where speakers reverse the usual direction of word-building. Because "ablute" follows the pattern of many verbs that end in "-ute," it sounds like a natural verb even though it was never a Latin verb.

Synonyms: wash, cleanse, bathe, lave, purify

Antonyms: soil, dirty, pollute, contaminate, defile