The Collaborative International Dictionary
Putrefy \Pu"tre*fy\, v. t. [Written also putrify.] [imp. & p. p. Putrefied; p. pr. & vb. n. Putrefying.] [F. putr['e]fier; L. putrere to be rotten + -ficare (in. comp.) to make; cf. L. putrefacere. See Putrid, and -fy.]
To render putrid; to cause to decay offensively; to cause to be decomposed; to cause to rot.
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To corrupt; to make foul.
Private suits do putrefy the public good.
--Bacon.They would but stink, and putrefy the air.
--Shak. To make morbid, carious, or gangrenous; as, to putrefy an ulcer or wound.
Wiktionary
vb. (present participle of putrefy English)
Usage examples of "putrefying".
Whatever the reason and whatever it is, this putrefying collection of withered flesh and brittle bone is driven relentlessly towards it.
Three bodies, already putrefying, lay on the pale green ceramic tiles between the corner table-desk and the circular table.
The firebolt removed the putrefying corpses and the worst of the odor.
However, in some places there was, and indeed still is, a custom of keeping the putrefying corpse unburied in the house as a mark of affection.
Some of them would even anoint their bodies with the drippings from the putrefying corpse for the same purpose.
Board of Health lets you stay around the streets--when putrefying matter causes so much disease.
Heaped like driftwood by the rising water, bobbing and rolling on the edges, the putrefying flesh seethed with black-shelled, ten-legged crabs.
Teresa, seeing Jarmassad betrayed and brutally stabbed, surged through the flames in a frenzy of rage and conjured up a vision of an enormous putrefying monster who loomed over Orial.
The sour smell of faeces, wreckage and putrefying flesh was a smell all soldiers knew: it was the smell of war.
And after these scavengers of the East had torn the putrefying flesh and gnawed the multitude of bones, they prowled around the country, with tongues lolling out, in search of water.
These putrefying limbs Shut round and sepulchre the panting soul Which would burst forth into the wandering air!
Unsuccessfully, she forbade herself to think of worms and dirt and putrefying flesh.