Infusion

How to spell infusion

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce infusion

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does infusion mean?

1. nounA drink or liquid made by soaking herbs, leaves, or other substances in hot water to extract their flavour or qualities.
2. nounThe slow introduction of fluid, medication, or nutrients into the body, usually through a vein.
3. nounThe introduction of a new or additional element into something to strengthen or improve it.

Infusion in a sentence

• The café offers a calming chamomile infusion after dinner.

• The nurse set up an intravenous infusion to rehydrate the patient.

• The failing company needed a sudden infusion of cash to survive.

• She steeped the dried mint for ten minutes to make the infusion.

• His antibiotic infusion took several hours at the clinic.

• The new manager brought an infusion of fresh ideas to the team.

Where does infusion come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb infundere, meaning 'to pour in', which was built from in- ('in' or 'into') and fundere ('to pour'). The past participle infusus gave rise to the noun infusio, describing the act of pouring liquid into something. English took it up in the late 1300s and 1400s, partly through French, and used it first for the soaking of herbs or substances in liquid to draw out their qualities, as in making tea. From there it broadened to the medical sense of slowly introducing fluid into the body and the figurative sense of introducing a fresh element into something. The same fundere root, meaning 'to pour', also sits inside the everyday words 'confuse', 'refund', and 'foundry', and remembering that 'pouring' core helps explain why infusion keeps the single 's' of fus rather than a doubled letter.

How the word is built

• in- (in, into)
• fus (from Latin fundere, fusus: to pour)
• -ion (noun suffix)