suffix, occurring in words (adj. and sb.) f. mod.L. types in -fugus. According to classical L. analogy, this ending should be connected with fugĕre to flee (cf. profugus), and should have the sense ‘fleeing from’ (cf. lucifugus, erifuga). In the medical words febrifugus, lit. driving away fevers, vermifugus expelling worms, however, the ending derives its sense from L. fugāre, to put to flight. In imitation of the anglicized forms of these, nonce-wds. in -fuge have occasionally been formed; chiefly on Lat. stems, as DEMONIFUGE (q.v.), dolorifuge, something to drive away pain; but occasionally on Eng. words, as mendacity-fuge.
1802–12. Bentham, Rationale of Judic. Evid. (1827), V. IX. iv. 429. In all purely pecuniary cases, to which the virtue of the mendacity-fuge diaphoretic does not extend.
1891. T. Hardy, Tess, I. vi. 86. The children, who had made use of this idea of Tess being taken up by their wealthy kinsfolk (as they imagined the other family to be) as a species of dolorifuge after the death of the horse.
