Furzen

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To emit gas noisily from the digestive tract through the anus ; to break wind or pass flatulence in a manner that is often audible
2. Producing a sound by releasing intestinal gas through the rectum ; expelling a gaseous substance noisily from the bowels
3. Letting out air with a sound from the lower digestive system ; making a noisy release of bodily gas via the anus

Etymology: Furzen is a verb built from the noun "furze," the common name for gorse, the spiny evergreen shrub with yellow flowers that covers heaths and common land. The verb takes its shape from the suffix "-en," which in Old English formed verbs from nouns and adjectives, so "furzen" literally means something like "to do the thing associated with furze." The link to the bodily sense is not stated in the record, and the sense is probably a euphemistic extension of the shrub's name, so the connection is best taken as a playful one rather than a documented one. The noun "furze" has deep roots in the English language, descending from Old English "fyrs" and tracing back through Proto-West Germanic and Proto-Germanic to the Proto-Indo-European root for gorse. Its ancestry runs through several Germanic forms, but the word stayed firmly in the vocabulary of rural English speakers for centuries.

Synonyms: fart, break wind, pass gas

Antonyms: hold in, retain gas