Defaecare

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The act of expelling feces from the body
2. the bodily process of removing waste materials
3. a term describing the function of digestion and elimination in living organisms

Etymology: "Defaecare" is the Latin verb meaning to clear dregs from something, from "de-" (away, down, off) and "faex" (genitive "faecis"), "dregs, lees, sediment." Its original sense was concrete and rather domestic: removing the sediment from wine or oil, or cleaning out a vessel. Roman writers used it for purifying liquids long before it was applied to the body. The extension to bodily waste came through the idea of settling out impurities, and the word passed into English through the Latin of medicine and scholarship. The English form is "defecate," which is the same word, and its earlier meaning of clearing liquids or making something pure still survives in chemistry and in phrases about refining a substance.

Synonyms: defecate, excrete, evacuate, bowel movement