From Middle English purgatorie, from Old French purgatore, purgatorie, from Latin purgātōrium.

• (America) IPA: /ˈpɝɡəˌtɔɹi/
• (RP) IPA: /ˈpɜːɡət(ə)ɹi/

purgatory

1. (Christianity) Alternative case form of Purgatory
2. Any situation where suffering is endured, particularly as part of a process of redemption.
   • 1774, John Burgoyne, The Maid of the Oaks‎, London: T. Becket, act I, scene 1, page 6:

     I laid my rank and fortune at the fair one’s feet, and would have married instantly; but that Oldworth opposed my precipitancy, and insisted upon a probation of six months absence—It has been a purgatory!

   • 1853, Elizabeth Gaskell, chapter 25, in Ruth‎:

     It might be […] that Ruth had worked her way through the deep purgatory of repentance up to something like purity again; God only knew!

   • 1904, Upton Sinclair, chapter 10, in The Jungle‎:

     Later came midsummer, with the stifling heat, when the dingy killing beds of Durham’s became a very purgatory; one time, in a single day, three men fell dead from sunstroke.

   • 1997, J. M. Coetzee, chapter 11, in Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life‎, Penguin, page 100:

     […] that would mean he would be irrecoverably Afrikaans and would have to spend years in the purgatory of an Afrikaans boarding-school, as all farm-children do, before he would be allowed to come back to the farm.

• German: Purgatorium
• Portuguese: suplício

purgatory

1. Tending to cleanse; expiatory.
   • 1600, Philemon Holland, transl., The Roman Historie Written by T. Livius of Padua‎, London, Book 41, p. 1103:

     Last of all, the prodigie of Siracusa was expiat by a purgatory sacrifice, by direction from the soothsaiers to what gods, supplications and sacrifice should be made.

1. (Christianity) An intermediate state after death in which some of those ultimately destined for Heaven must first undergo purification.

• See Thesaurus:afterlife

• French: purgatoire
• German: Fegefeuer, Fegfeuer, (rare) Purgatorium
• Italian: purgatorio
• Portuguese: purgatório
• Russian: чисти́лище
• Spanish: purgatorio