suffuse
/səˈfjuːz
/verb [with object]
Gradually spread through or over: her cheeks were suffused with colour the first half of the poem is suffused with idealism...
- ‘The spirit of Morecambe and Wise gradually suffuses the show, and lots of Morecambe and Wise gags are lifted verbatim,’ says Clive.
- Where a dark grey curtain had hidden the hills from sight, a rosy glow gradually deepened and suffused every mountain top in sight.
- Sweet and spicy flavors, including date, pomegranate, coriander, and cumin, suffuse the foods spread out on a nearby buffet.
Synonyms
permeate, spread over, spread throughout, cover, bathe, pervade, wash, saturate, imbue, fill, load, charge, impregnate, inform, steep, colour
literary mantle
Derivatives
suffusion
- Working with light hues, the artist generates the impression of his motifs melting into a suffusion of light and shade on the computer generated prints.
- The tall spire of the Town Hall and its contrasting colours of azure and white stood majestically between a glorious suffusion of greenery.
- It's all here: the suffusion of the scientific with the erotic, the fascination for catastrophe and mutation, the Burroughsian black humour, provocative notions about ‘creative cancer’ and ‘omnisexuality.’
Origin
Late 16th century: from Latin suffus- 'poured into', from sub- 'below, from below' + fundere 'pour'.