Pure \Pure\, a. [Compar. Purer; superl. Purest.] [OE. pur,
F. pur, fr. L. purus; akin to putus pure, clear, putare to
clean, trim, prune, set in order, settle, reckon, consider,
think, Skr. p? to clean, and perh. E. fire. Cf. Putative.]
1. Separate from all heterogeneous or extraneous matter; free
from mixture or combination; clean; mere; simple; unmixed;
as, pure water; pure clay; pure air; pure compassion.
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The pure fetters on his shins great. --Chaucer.
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A guinea is pure gold if it has in it no alloy. --I.
Watts.
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2. Free from moral defilement or quilt; hence, innocent;
guileless; chaste; -- applied to persons. "Keep thyself
pure." --1 Tim. v. 22.
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Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a
pure heart, and of a good conscience. --1 Tim. i. 5.
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3. Free from that which harms, vitiates, weakens, or
pollutes; genuine; real; perfect; -- applied to things and
actions. "Pure religion and impartial laws." --Tickell.
"The pure, fine talk of Rome." --Ascham.
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Such was the origin of a friendship as warm and pure
as any that ancient or modern history records.
--Macaulay.
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4. (Script.) Ritually clean; fitted for holy services.
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Thou shalt set them in two rows, six on a row, upon
the pure table before the Lord. --Lev. xxiv.
6.
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5. (Phonetics) Of a single, simple sound or tone; -- said of
some vowels and the unaspirated consonants.
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Pure-impure, completely or totally impure. "The inhabitants
were pure-impure pagans." --Fuller.
Pure blue. (Chem.) See Methylene blue, under Methylene.
Pure chemistry. See under Chemistry.
Pure mathematics, that portion of mathematics which treats
of the principles of the science, or contradistinction to
applied mathematics, which treats of the application of
the principles to the investigation of other branches of
knowledge, or to the practical wants of life. See
Mathematics. --Davies & Peck (Math. Dict. )
Pure villenage (Feudal Law), a tenure of lands by uncertain
services at the will of the lord. --Blackstone.
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Syn: Unmixed; clear; simple; real; true; genuine;
unadulterated; uncorrupted; unsullied; untarnished;
unstained; stainless; clean; fair; unspotted; spotless;
incorrupt; chaste; unpolluted; undefiled; immaculate;
innocent; guiltless; guileless; holy.
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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
pure
adj 1: free of extraneous elements of any kind; "pure air and
water"; "pure gold"; "pure primary colors"; "the
violin's pure and lovely song"; "pure tones" [ant: impure]
2: without qualification; used informally as (often pejorative)
intensifiers; "an arrant fool"; "a complete coward"; "a
consummate fool"; "a double-dyed villain"; "gross
negligence"; "a perfect idiot"; "pure folly"; "what a
sodding mess"; "stark staring mad"; "a thoroughgoing
villain"; "utter nonsense" [syn: arrant(a), complete(a),
consummate(a), double-dyed(a), everlasting(a), gross(a),
perfect(a), pure(a), sodding(a), stark(a), staring(a),
thoroughgoing(a), utter(a)]
3: concerned with theory and data rather than practice; opposed
to applied; "pure science"
4: (of color) being chromatically pure; not diluted with white
or gray or black [syn: saturated] [ant: unsaturated]
5: free from discordant qualities
6: used of persons or behaviors; having no faults; sinless; "I
felt pure and sweet as a new baby"- Sylvia Plath; "pure as
the driven snow" [ant: impure]
7: in a state of sexual virginity; "pure and vestal modesty";
"a spinster or virgin lady"; "men have decreed that their
women must be pure and virginal" [syn: vestal, virgin,
virginal, virtuous]
8: not mixed; "pure oxygen" [syn: unmixed, undiluted]
WordNet (r) 2.0
365 Moby Thesaurus words for "pure":
Attic, Christian, Christlike, Christly, Ciceronian, God-fearing,
Spartan, above suspicion, absolute, abstract, academical,
aesthetic, all-embracing, all-encompassing, all-out, all-pervading,
angelic, antiseptic, artistic, ascetic, austere, authentic, bald,
bare, basic, beyond all praise, blameless, blasted, bleached,
blessed, blotless, bona fide, born, bright, broad-based, candid,
card-carrying, chaste, choice, classic, classical, clean, cleanly,
clear, common, commonplace, complete, comprehensive, conceptual,
confounded, congenital, conjectural, consummate, correct,
creditable, dainty, decent, decorous, deep-dyed, defectless,
dinkum, direct, dirt-free, disinfected, downright, dry, dull,
dyed-in-the-wool, easy, egregious, elegant, elementary, erect,
essential, estimable, ethical, everyday, excellent, exemplary,
exhaustive, fair, fastidious, faultless, finished, flawless,
following the letter, frank, fresh, full of integrity, fundamental,
garden, garden-variety, genuine, godlike, godly, godly-minded,
good, graceful, gracile, gross, guileless, guiltless, heavenly,
high-minded, high-principled, highly respectable, holy,
holy-minded, homely, homespun, homogeneous, honest, honest-to-God,
honorable, household, hypothetical, ideal, immaculate, impeccable,
in good taste, inartificial, inculpable, indefectible, indefective,
indivisible, infallible, infernal, innocent, intact, intensive,
inviolate, irreducible, irreproachable, just, just right, kosher,
law-abiding, law-loving, law-revering, lawful, lean, legitimate,
lifelike, limpid, literal, lucid, maidenly, manly, matter-of-fact,
mere, modest, monolithic, moral, natural, naturalistic, neat,
noble, nondescript, nonpolluted, notional, of a piece, of choice,
of cleanly habits, of quality, omnibus, omnipresent, open,
ordinary, original, otherworldly, out-and-out, outright,
pasteurized, peerless, pellucid, perfect, perspicuous, pervasive,
philosophical, pious, plain, plain-speaking, plain-spoken,
pleasing, plenary, plumb, polished, primal, primary, principled,
proper, prosaic, prosing, prosy, pure and simple, pure in heart,
purehearted, quiet, quintessential, radical, real, realistic,
refined, regular, reputable, respectable, restrained, right,
right-minded, righteous, rightful, ritually pure, round, rustic,
saintlike, saintly, sanitary, seraphic, severe, sexually innocent,
sheer, shiny, simon-pure, simple, simple-speaking, sincere, single,
sinless, smut-free, smutless, snowy, sober, solid, spare,
speculative, spiritual, spiritual-minded, spotless, stainless,
stark, sterile, sterilized, sterling, straight, straightforward,
subdued, sure-enough, sweeping, sweet, tahar, taintless, tasteful,
terse, theoretical, thorough, thoroughgoing, through-and-through,
total, trim, true, true to life, true to nature, true to reality,
true-dealing, true-devoted, true-disposing, true-souled,
true-spirited, truehearted, tubbed, ubiquitous, unadorned,
unadulterated, unaffected, unalloyed, unassumed, unassuming,
unbesmirched, unblamable, unblemished, unblotted, uncluttered,
uncolored, unconcocted, unconditional, uncontaminated, uncopied,
uncorrupt, uncorrupted, uncounterfeited, undefiled, understated,
undifferenced, undifferentiated, undiluted, undisguised,
undisguising, undistorted, unearthly, unexaggerated, unfabricated,
unfanciful, unfaultable, unfeigned, unfeigning, unfictitious,
unflattering, uniform, unimaginative, unimagined, unimitated,
unimpeachable, uninvented, universal, unlabored, unmitigated,
unmixed, unmuddied, unobtrusive, unpoetical, unpolluted,
unpretended, unpretending, unqualified, unreserved, unrestricted,
unromantic, unsimulated, unsmirched, unsmudged, unsoiled,
unspecious, unspotted, unstained, unsullied, unsynthetic,
untainted, untarnished, unvarnished, unworldly, upright,
uprighteous, upstanding, utter, verbal, verbatim, veridical,
verisimilar, veritable, vestal, virgin, virginal, virtuous,
well-chosen, well-scrubbed, well-washed, white, whitened,
wholesale, wholesome, word-for-word, workaday, workday, worthy,
yeomanly
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
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