Abstersioun

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The act of cleansing a wound or bodily sore by wiping or washing it clean
2. A cleansing process in which a wound or sore is wiped or purged of foreign matter
3. Medical or archaic cleansing, especially wiping clean a wound or diseased part of the body

Etymology: The Latin verb "abstergere" meant "to wipe away," built from "ab-" ("away") and "tergere" ("to wipe clean"). Its noun, "abstersio," gave English a term for the act of cleansing, especially in medicine, where it meant washing or wiping a wound or sore clean. The spelling in this form, with "-oun," reflects Old French "-ion" endings, and it appears in Middle English, roughly the late 1300s to 1400s. The same Latin root "tergere" also lies behind "terse." Its past participle, "tersus," meant "wiped" or "polished," so "terse" first described something smooth and clean before it came to mean brief and clean of unnecessary words.