PURGING • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Purging

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/pˈərdʒɪŋ/ Listen

noun

Purging n. (Med.) The act of cleansing; excessive evacuations; especially, diarrhea.

verb

Purge v. t. (past & past part. purged; pres. part. purging)

1.

To cleanse, clear, or purify by separating and carrying off whatever is impure, heterogeneous, foreign, or superfluous. "Till fire purge all things new."

2.

(Med.) To operate on as, or by means of, a cathartic medicine, or in a similar manner.

3.

To clarify; to defecate, as liquors.

4.

To clear of sediment, as a boiler, or of air, as a steam pipe, by driving off or permitting escape.

5.

To clear from guilt, or from moral or ceremonial defilement; as, to purge one of guilt or crime. "When that he hath purged you from sin." "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean."

6.

(Law) To clear from accusation, or the charge of a crime or misdemeanor, as by oath or in ordeal.

7.

To remove in cleansing; to deterge; to wash away; often followed by away. "Purge away our sins, for thy name's sake." "We 'll join our cares to purge away Our country's crimes."

Purge v. i.

1.

To become pure, as by clarification.

2.

To have or produce frequent evacuations from the intestines, as by means of a cathartic.

adjective

Purging adj. That purges; cleansing.

Purging flax (Bot.), an annual European plant of the genus Linum (Linum catharticum); dwarf wild flax; so called from its use as a cathartic medicine.

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Etymology of 'Purging'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Purging" Quotes from Famous Books

... difficulty in distinguishing them. These species form two genera—Sarco ramphus and Cathartes. The Sarcoramphs have a fleshy protuberance over the beak—hence the generic name, which is a compound of two Greek words, signifying flesh, and beak or bill. The Cathartes, or 'purging-vultures,' derive their name from a singular habit—that of throwing up their food again, not only when feeding their young, but also when providing for one another during ...

— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid

... cases are vomiting and purging occurring either together or alternately. The seizure is usually sudden and violent. The contents of the stomach are first ejected, and this is followed by severe retching and vomiting of thin fluid of bilious appearance and bitter ...

— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... is that it helps us, by means of its spiritual standard of perfection, to regard wealth as but machinery, and not only to say as a matter of words that we regard wealth as but machinery, but really to perceive and feel that it is so. If it were not for this purging effect wrought upon our minds by culture, the whole world, the future as well as the present, would inevitably belong to the Philistines. The people who believe most that our greatness and welfare [20] are proved by our being very rich, and ...

— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold

... the spirit of evil, wont of yore to use the human organs as his own for words of folly and deeds of iniquity. Bolshevism has operated uniformly as a quick solvent of the social organism. Doubtless European society in 1917 sorely needed purging by drastic means, but only a fanatic would say ...

— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... mind as to be capable of assisting him effectually in ruling so divided, war-loving and revengeful a people, and he allowed him practically unlimited power to do as he liked. He went even further by pretending to fall in with Dunstan's ambitions of purging the Church of the order of priests or half-priests, or canons, who were in possession of most of the religious houses in England, and were priests that married wives and owned lands and had great power. Against this monstrous state of things Edgar ...

— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson

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