expurgate

English

WOTD – 1 August 2006

Etymology

From Latin expurgātus, perfect passive participle of expurgō (“purge, cleanse, purify”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɛks.pɚ.ɡeɪt/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Verb

expurgate (third-person singular simple present expurgates, present participle expurgating, simple past and past participle expurgated)

1. (transitive) To edit out (incorrect, offensive, or otherwise undesirable information) from a book or other publication; to cleanse; to purge.

   The publisher decided to expurgate the love scene from the book, to make it more child-friendly.

   • 1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Texan”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 6:

     Yossarian was busy expurgating all but romance words from the letters when the chaplain sat down in a chair between the beds and asked him how he was feeling.

2. (transitive) To undertake editing out incorrect, offensive, or otherwise undesirable information from (a book or other publication); to cleanse; to purge.

   The publisher decided to expurgate the book, which meant removing the love scene.

Derived terms

• expurgator
• expurgatory
• expurgatorious

Related terms

English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *pewH-‎ (0 c, 37 e)

Translations

to cleanse, to purge

• Czech: cenzurovat (cs) impf
• Finnish: sensuroida (fi), poistaa (fi)
• French: expurger (fr)
• Galician: expurgar (gl)
• Indonesian: ralat, meralat
• Kurdish:

  Northern Kurdish: pak kirin (ku), paqij kirin (ku)

• Romanian: expurga (ro)
• Spanish: expurgar (es)

See also

• bowdlerise

Latin

Participle

expūrgāte

1. vocative masculine singular of expūrgātus

Spanish

Verb

expurgate

1. second-person singular voseo imperative of expurgar combined with te