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pure

adjective · noun

Simple meaning

Free of flaws or imperfections.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

pyoor
US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈpjʊɹ

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. Free of flaws or imperfections; unsullied.

  2. Free of foreign material or pollutants.

  3. Free of immoral behavior or qualities; clean.

  4. Mere; that and that only.

  5. of sound

    Without harmonics or overtones; not harsh or discordant.

noun

  1. Dung (of dogs, fowls, etc) used in tanning, after applying lime, to soften skins.

  2. One who, or that which, is pure.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B1 · Intermediate
Frequency
Common
Typical Use
Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Free of flaws or imperfections; unsullied.

Used this way, pure is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in technical or specialist writing contexts.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Specialist/technical
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Specialized
Connotation
Clinical and technical
Usage feel
Technical and specialized

Where it naturally appears

  • Technical/specialist writing

Usage note

In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use pure

  • “I felt pure and sweet as a new baby"- Sylvia Plath.”adjective

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Single

pure form

Done

pure sciencepure mathematics

Other combinations

pure landpure waterpure reasonpure goldpure air

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • purelyadverbDerived adverb

    Restricted to something.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • pure mathematicsnounCompound term

    The branches of mathematics that study and develop the principles of mathematics for their own sake rather than for their immediate usefulness.

  • pure tonenounCompound term

    A steady sound without overtones.

  • pure imaginary numbernounCompound term

    An imaginary number of the form a+bi where a is 0.

  • pure goldnounCompound term

    100 per cent gold.

  • pure binary numeration systemnounCompound term

    A positional system of numeration that uses binary digits and a radix of two.

  • pure absencenounCompound term

    An absence seizure without other complications.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: free of flaws or imperfections

cleanpristine

Antonyms

Sense: free of flaws or imperfections

impure

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.