pure – English adjective declension

English adjective forms of pure

Adjective: pure

Comparison Forms

Synthetic

Comparativepurer
Superlativepurest

Perifrastic

Comparativemore pure
Superlativemost pure

Sample Sentences

  • Such was the origin of a friendship as warm and pure as any that ancient or modern history records. [1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter VII, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:]
  • A guinea is pure gold if it has in it no alloy. [1725, Isaac Watts, Logick: Or, The Right Use of Reason in the Enquiry after Truth, […], 2nd edition, London: […] John Clark and Richard Hett, […], Emanuel Matthews, […], and Richard Ford, […], published 1726, →OCLC:]
  • As for the rest, the air here is said to be purer than elsewhere in Ireland; the water of the Nore is beautifully transparent; and the bogless state of the land helps out the rhyme. [1837, Leitch Ritchie, Ireland Picturesque and Romantic, volume 1, page 225:]
  • "Hetch Hetchy water is the purest, wholly unpolluted, and forever unpollutable." [1908 January 4, John Muir, “The Hetch Hetchy Valley”, in Sierra Club Bulletin, volume VI, number 4:]
  • Laye hondes sodenly on no man nether be part taker of wother mens synnes. Kepe thy silfe pure. [1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, 1 Timothy v:[22], folio cclxxviij, recto:]
  • That idea is pure madness!
  • The [Isaac] Newton that emerges from the [unpublished] manuscripts is far from the popular image of a rational practitioner of cold and pure reason. The architect of modern science was himself not very modern. He was obsessed with alchemy. [2014 June 21, “Magician’s brain”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8892:]
  • a pure method
  • Well when ah's youngah, ah'd just light a candle rahn de dinna table play pure crazy 8s and spades vif my brotha til we lot dozed off... [2013 April 12, “Exclusive: Meet Derpuntae - Bermuda's first meme”, in The Bermuda Sun, archived from the original on 12 Dec 2022:]

Adjectives inflected like pure

serene, severe, secure, sedate, wheelie, simple, complete, fulsome, sprightlie, discrete, plosive, bizarre, brusque, brittle, wholesome, sincere, shystie, loveable, prophane, terrible, etc. (List truncated at 20 adjectives)

Etymology

From Middle English pure, pur, from Old French pur, from Latin pūrus (“clean, free from dirt or filth, unmixed, plain”), from Proto-Indo-European *pewH- (“to cleanse, purify”). Displaced native Middle English lutter (“pure, clear, sincere”) (from Old English hlūtor, hluttor), Middle English skere (“pure, sheer, clear”) (from Old English scǣre and Old Norse skǣr), Middle English schir (“clear, pure”) (from Old English scīr), Middle English smete, smeate (“pure, refined”) (from Old English smǣte; compare Old English mǣre (“pure”)). See: Latin Adjectives 'pūrus'.