Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To void feces from the bowels.
  • intransitive verb To void (feces) from the bowels.
  • intransitive verb To remove impurities from (a liquid, such as fruit juice), especially in sugar refining.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To purify; clarify; clear from dregs or impurities; refine.
  • To purify from admixture; clear; purge of extraneous matter.
  • To become clear or freed from impurities; clarify.
  • To void excrement.
  • Purged from dregs; clarified; defecated.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To become clear, pure, or free.
  • intransitive verb To void excrement.
  • adjective Freed from anything that can pollute, as dregs, lees, etc.; refined; purified.
  • transitive verb To clear from impurities, as lees, dregs, etc.; to clarify; to purify; to refine.
  • transitive verb To free from extraneous or polluting matter; to clear; to purify, as from that which materializes.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To purify, to clean of dregs etc.
  • verb transitive To purge; to pass (something) as excrement.
  • verb intransitive To empty one's bowels of feces.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb have a bowel movement

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin dēfaecāre, to clean the dregs from : dē-, de- + faex, faec-, dregs.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the participle stem of Latin dēfaecāre ("to purify"), from de- and faex ("dreg, impurity").

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Examples

  • If the large intestine is not connected to the anus, the child cannot defecate, which is why Baby has to poop before going home from the hospital.

    You Raising Your Child Michael F. Roizen 2010

  • If the large intestine is not connected to the anus, the child cannot defecate, which is why Baby has to poop before going home from the hospital.

    You Raising Your Child Michael F. Roizen 2010

  • If the large intestine is not connected to the anus, the child cannot defecate, which is why Baby has to poop before going home from the hospital.

    You Raising Your Child Michael F. Roizen 2010

  • If the large intestine is not connected to the anus, the child cannot defecate, which is why Baby has to poop before going home from the hospital.

    You Raising Your Child Michael F. Roizen 2010

  • It would be funny in an entirely different way if she intended to write "defecate," assuming the context would also be different (otherwise it wouldn't make sense).

    Intention: What Did He Know, and When Did He Know It? Richard Nokes 2005

  • It would be funny in an entirely different way if she intended to write "defecate," assuming the context would also be different (otherwise it wouldn't make sense).

    Archive 2005-11-01 Richard Nokes 2005

  • -- Because it is based on a knowledge of the God-world; because her eyes were focused for the things 'on the other side of the sky'; because this world, for her, was a mere reflexion and thin concealment of the other, and the mists between her and the Divine 'defecate' constantly, in Coleridge's curious phrase, 'to a clear transparency.'

    The Crest-Wave of Evolution A Course of Lectures in History, Given to the Graduates' Class in the Raja-Yoga College, Point Loma, in the College-Year 1918-19 Kenneth Morris 1908

  • Garbage trucks are no longer able to collect trash from some areas, and many homes don't have running water or functioning toilets, leaving residents to defecate in the open.

    Thai Flooding Causes Threat of Disease Shibani Mahtani 2011

  • The 21st-century male can pass gas, defecate in public and urinate over cliffs and from rooftops on people below.

    All About Yveses Nancy deWolf Smith 2011

  • We learn for instance, that Americans got the toothbrush in 1773 (275 years after the Chinese), that the toilet flush (invented in Europe in 1598) did not reach America until 1764 and that public lavatories (much used by the ancient Romans) were not available in America until they were introduced in the late 17th century in Boston—where, according to Mr. Robertson, "even women were wont to defecate in the street."

    Unprecedented, Possibly 2011

Comments

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  • "Former Northwest Orient CEO Donald Nyrop built entire office buildings without a single window – not even the doors were glass – because he didn’t want his employees frittering away time looking outside. I’ve seen the buildings. They are giant gray cement rectangles. He ordered all the doors taken off the bathroom stalls because he didn’t want employees wasting time on the toilet. Can you imagine what it must have been like to work under his leadership? You couldn’t even defecate in solitude."

    - Why You Should Always Eat Lunch Alone

    May 20, 2009