- infuse
- infuse, suffuse, imbue, ingrain, inoculate, leaven mean to introduce one thing into another so as to affect it throughout.Infuse implies a permeating like that of infiltering fluid, usually of something which imbues the recipient with new spirit, life, or vigor or gives it or him a new cast or new significance{
thou didst smile, infused with a fortitude from heaven, when I . . . under my burden groaned— Shak.
}{he infused his own intrepid spirit into the troops— Gibbon
}{whose work is for the most part infused with the spirit of scientific materialism— L. A. White
}Suffuse implies an overspreading of a surface by or a spreading through an extent of something that gives the thing affected a distinctive or unusual color, aspect, texture, or quality{a blush suffused her cheek
}{eyes suffused with tears
}{when purple light shall next suffuse the skies— Pope
}{she . . . pulled the chain of the incandescent mantle .... the room was suffused with the sickly illumination— Mackenzie
}{the poetic faculty will, in fact, have to deal—not with an abstract idea—but with an idea suffused and molded by emotion— Day Lewis
}Imbue implies the introduction of something that enters so deeply and so extensively into the thing's substance or nature that no part is left untouched or unaffected; unlike infuse, which it otherwise closely resembles, imbue takes as its object the person or thing affected, not the thing that is introduced{infuse courage into his soldiers
}{imbue his soldiers with cour- age
}{infuse grace into the soul
}{imbue the soul with grace
}{thy words, with grace divine imbued, bring to their sweetness no satiety— Milton
}{[Virgil] has imbued every object that he touches, with the light and warmth and color absorbed from its contact with life— Lowes
}{individuals or societies whose life is imbued with a cheerful certitude, whose aims are clear— Krutch
}Ingrain is found in the. past participle or passive forms only; like imbue, it implies an incorporation of something comparable to a pervading dye with the body, substance, or nature of whatever is affected, but unlike imbue, it takes for its object or, when the verb is passive, as its subject the thing introduced rather than the person or thing affected{cruelty and jealousy seemed to be ingrained in a man who has these vices at all— Helps
}{the idea of absolute financial probity as the first law of a gentleman's code was . . . deeply ingrained in him— Wharton
}{the feeling ... is so deeply ingrained in human nature— F. M. Miiller
}Inoculate implies imbuing a person with something that alters him in a manner suggestive of a disease germ or an antigen. Often, the term implies an introduction of an idea, a doctrine, an emotion, or a taste by highly surreptitious or artificial means, in order to achieve a desired end; less often, it additionally implies an evil and destructive quality in what is introduced{students inoculated with dangerous ideas
}{the theory . . . that if the great masses of the plain people could be inoculated with it [a taste for music] they would cease to herd into the moving-picture theaters— Mencken
}Leaven implies a transforming or tempering of a body or mass by the introduction of something which enlivens, elevates, exalts, or, occasionally, causes disturbance, agitation, or corruption{knowledge . . . must be leavened with magnanimity before it becomes wisdom— A. E. Stevenson
}{there was need of idealism to leaven the materialistic realism of the times— Parrington
}
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
