The lexeme may also have been influenced by classical Latin purulentus (‘1. that contains, consists of, or resembles pus, (also in general sense) rotten or putrid’ and ‘2. filthy, dirty’, DMLBS 2585c), which, through loss of the inter-consonantal u and subsequent assimilation of r and l, would also have produced pullent. The word’s third sense in the DMLBS, ‘blocked with the mucus of the nose, snotty’, is also found associated with Anglo-Norman pullent.

The spelling purlent, attested in Secr¹ 1584, would confirm such a link; however, this form is a questionable editorial correction of the unlikely manuscript reading pirclent. The latter may have to be read as pirelent, but no such adjectival form, or any discernible variant of purulent, is otherwise attested in Anglo-Norman.