purge
Pronunciation
  • (America) IPA: /pɝdʒ/
  • (RP) IPA: /pɜːdʒ/
Noun

purge (plural purges)

  1. An act of purge#Verb|purging.
  2. (medicine) An evacuation of the bowels or a vomiting.
  3. A cleansing of pipes.
  4. A forcible removal of people, for example, from political activity.
    Stalin liked to ensure that his purges were not reversible.
  5. That which purges; especially, a medicine that evacuates the intestines; a cathartic.
Translations Translations Verb

purge (purges, present participle purging; past and past participle purged)

  1. (transitive) To clean thoroughly; to cleanse; to rid of impurities.
  2. (transitive, religion) to free from sin, guilt, or the burden or responsibility of misdeeds
  3. (transitive) To remove by cleansing; to wash away.
    • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), imprinted at London: By Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981 ↗, Psalms 79:9 ↗:
      Purge away our sins, for thy name's sake.
    • 1713, Joseph Addison, Cato, published 1712, [Act 2, scene 1]:
      We'll join our cares to purge away / Our country's crimes.
  4. (transitive, intransitive, medicine) To void or evacuate (the bowels or the stomach); to defecate or vomit.
  5. (transitive, medicine) To cause someone to purge, operate on (somebody) as or with a cathartic or emetic, or in a similar manner.
    • 1979, Octavia Butler, Kindred:
      "What did they die of?" I asked.
      "Fevers. The doctor came and bled them and purged them, but they still died."
      "He bled and purged babies?"
      "They were two and three. He said it would break the fever. And it did. But they ... they died anyway."
  6. (transitive, legal) to clear of a charge, suspicion, or imputation
  7. (transitive) To clarify; to clear the dregs from (liquor).
  8. (intransitive) To become pure, as by clarification.
  9. (intransitive) To have or produce frequent evacuations from the intestines, as by means of a cathartic.
  10. (transitive) To trim, dress or prune.
Translations Translations Translations Translations


This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.003
Offline English dictionary