Definition of FUMIGATION

Examples of fumigate in a Sentence

All the hospital rooms had to be fumigated. We had to fumigate our apartment to get rid of the ants.

Recent Examples on the Web The paddle, which looks like a hairbrush with spikes, was used in the late 1800s to puncture mail so that postal workers could fumigate it to try to contain yellow fever outbreaks. — Washington Post, "We now know that the Postal Service can change history. This museum has argued that for decades.," 10 Sep. 2020 Bedbugs are disgusting and expensive and exhausting, and require you to role-play your own private disaster movie, nuke most of your belongings and fumigate the rest. — Laurie Penny, Wired, "Live Wrong and Prosper: Covid-19 and the Future of Families," 18 June 2020 Sterigenics and its corporate predecessors fumigated medical equipment with the toxic gas for more than three decades in an industrial park behind a Target store and across the street from Willowbrook Village Hall. — Michael Hawthorne, chicagotribune.com, "Sterigenics is leaving Willowbrook, eliminating key source of cancer-causing ethylene oxide in Chicago’s western suburbs," 30 Sep. 2019 The Palace of the People, which seats the National Assembly and Senate, was also fumigated. — Fox News, "Ebola spreading in Democratic Republic of Congo during coronavirus fight, officials say," 14 Apr. 2020 There were nods to the crisis unfolding outside -- the couple updated their wedding hashtag to #loveinthetimeofcorona, and kept sanitizing and fumigating the space. — Julia Hollingsworth, CNN, "Love under lockdown: The couples pushed together and kept apart by coronavirus," 28 Mar. 2020 Talking Stick Resort Arena will be shut down Friday to fumigate the building, team officials informed The Republic. — Duane Rankin, azcentral, "Phoenix Suns respond to coronavirus pandemic as NBA suspends season," 12 Mar. 2020 The males have been known to decorate their nests with flowers to attract mates and fumigate their dwellings with fresh herbs to repel unwanted pests. — New York Times, "Letter of Recommendation: Starlings," 11 Feb. 2020 The road outside the stadium was also fumigated for mosquitoes. — Manavi Kapur, Quartz India, "In photos: Modi’s home turf, Ahmedabad, has gone all out to please Donald Trump," 23 Feb. 2020

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'fumigate.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

History and Etymology for fumigate

borrowed from Latin fūmigātus, past participle of fūmigāre "to subject to smoke, get rid of with smoke," from fūmus "smoke" + -igāre, causative suffix, probably generalized from rēmigāre "to use oars, row," verbal derivative of rēmig-, rēmex "oarsman, rower," from rēmus "oar" + -ig-, -ex, agent noun derivative from the base of agere "to be in motion, do, perform" — more at fume entry 1, agent

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