lymph

• lymphe (rare, archaic)

Borrowing from French lymphe and/or Latin lympha (“clear water”), from Ancient Greek νῠ́μφη (númphē, “bride; spring water”). Doublet of nymph.

• IPA^(key): /lɪmf/, [lɪmpf]

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• Rhymes: -ɪmf

lymph (usually uncountable, plural lymphs)

1. (obsolete, literary) Pure water.
   1. (archaic, botany) The sap of plants.
2. (physiology) A colourless, watery, coagulable bodily fluid which bathes the tissues and is carried by the lymphatic system into the bloodstream; it resembles blood plasma in containing white blood cells and especially lymphocytes but normally few red blood cells and no platelets.
   1. (immunology) The discharge from a sore, inflammation etc.
      • 2000, JG Ballard, Super-Cannes, Fourth Estate 2011, page 268:

        She lay face-down, an infected puncture point on the inside of her thigh oozing a faint lymph.

• lymphatic
• nymph

• “lymph”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “lymph”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.