Definitions

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

  • adjective Serving to carry waste out of the body; excretory.
  • noun An organ or duct that removes or carries waste from the body.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Excretory; depuratory; serving to excrete, carry off, and discharge from the body waste products or effete matters.
  • noun A part or an organ of the body which has an excretory or depuratory function; an organ or a part which eliminates effete or excrementitious matters or products of decomposition, as carbonic dioxid, urea, cholesterin, etc.

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

  • noun (Physiol.) Any organ or part of the body (as the kidneys, skin, etc.,) which serves to carry off excrementitious or waste matter.

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

  • adjective Pertaining to the elimination of waste from the body.
  • noun Any part of the body which carries or removes waste.

Etymologies

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

[Middle English emunctorie, from Medieval Latin ēmunctōrius, from Latin ēmunctus, past participle of ēmungere, to blow one's nose : ē-, ex-, intensive pref.; see ex– + mungere, to blow one's nose.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin emunctus, past participle of ex mungere ("to blow one's nose").

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Examples

  • And lastly, the skin is a great emunctory, and carries off waste matters from the body.

    The Art of Living in Australia 2004

  • The scenes depicted on the emunctory field, showing our ancient duns and raths and cromlechs and grianauns and seats of learning and maledictive stones, are as wonderfully beautiful and the pigments as delicate as when the

    Ulysses 2003

  • Chronic, irreversible disease of the lungs; abnormal enlargement of air spaces in the lungs accompanied by destruction of the tissue lining the walls of the air spaces. emunctory

    Surgical Anatomy Joseph Maclise

  • The urinary apparatus (consisting of the kidneys, ureters, bladder, and urethra) is known to be the principal emunctory for eliminating and voiding the detritus formed by the continual decay of the parts comprising the animal economy.

    Surgical Anatomy Joseph Maclise

  • And lastly, the skin is a great emunctory, and carries off waste matters from the body.

    The Art of Living in Australia ; together with three hundred Australian cookery recipes and accessory kitchen information by Mrs. H. Wicken Philip E. Muskett

  • _ "" Scrophulae and glandulae are hard swellings developing in the soft parts, as in the emunctory localities of the veins and arteries, particularly in the neck, armpits and groins, and sometimes in other places.

    Gilbertus Anglicus Medicine of the Thirteenth Century Henry Ebenezer Handerson

  • I think people not able to pay forfeited "the prominence on the face, which is the organ of scent, and emunctory of the brain," as good Walker says.

    Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 Various

  • It had a most cheering effect upon our emunctory woes, and we lingered so long, in a meditative and healing ecstasy, that young women immured in the basement of the aromatic warehouse began to peer upward from the barred windows of their basement and squeak with astonished and nervous mirth.

    Pipefuls Christopher Morley 1923

  • The scenes depicted on the emunctory field, showing our ancient duns and raths and cromlechs and grianauns and seats of learning and maledictive stones, are as wonderfully beautiful and the pigments as delicate as when the Sligo illuminators gave free rein to their artistic fantasy long long ago in the time of the Barmecides.

    Ulysses James Joyce 1911

  • Monthly_, "is the stimulation of the emunctory action of the skin.

    Hygienic Physiology : with Special Reference to the Use of Alcoholic Drinks and Narcotics Joel Dorman Steele

Comments

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  • Conveying waste; pertaining to nose-blowing. (from Phrontistery)

    May 24, 2008

  • In typical practice of Trumpery

    Civility’s scarce and perfunctory.

    The organs of speech,

    Disgraced in the breach,

    Are put to a service emunctory.

    November 8, 2018