emaculation

English

Etymology

e- +‎ maculation

Noun

emaculation

1. (obsolete) The act of ridding something of its flaws or errors.
   • 1823, William Grant Broughton, An Examination of the Hypothesis advanced in a recent publication, entitled "Palæoromaica", Maintaining ... that the text of the Elzevir Greek Testament is not a translation from the Latin, page 152:

     [amid a discussion of the correction of errors in Bible translations] It is very evident indeed that his attention was directed to the emaculation of the more antient, or Philadelphian version; and not of that translation, of later date, which Usher supposes to have been communicated by Herod to Cleopatra. If the purity of the latter had been the final object of his labours, there is much reason in the question of Baronius.

   • 1836 January, “Editors' Table”, in Knickerbocker:

     The article has some good points, but its English exhibits several examples of what the writer's great exemplar has called 'palpable fractures of the skull of Priscian;' and we have no time, even if the subject were acceptable, to attempt its emaculation.

   • 1857, E. Ryerson, “Dr. Ryerson's Reply to the Rev. J. M. Bruyere”, in Controversy Between Dr. Ryerson, Chief Superintendent of Education in Upper Canada, and Rev. J.M. Bruyere, Rector of St. Michael's Cathedral, Toronto, on the Appropriation of the Clergy Reserves Funds:

     Under the pretence of not permitting anything denominational in the schools, the Bible was taken out of the hands of the Protestant pupils, and every paragraph and sentence, and every word, in which any reference to religion, or even the Divine Being was made in the school books, was crossed or blotted out. I have in my possession a specimen of this system of school-book emaculation in order to conciliate (as it was supposed) Bishop Hughes and his followers.