expurgate

American  

[ek-sper-geyt] / ˈɛk spərˌgeɪt /

verb (used with object)

expurgated, expurgating

1. to amend by removing words, passages, etc., deemed offensive or objectionable.

   Most children read an expurgated version of Grimms' fairy tales.

   Synonyms:

   bowdlerize, purge, censor, excise, delete

2. to purge or cleanse of moral offensiveness.

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expurgate British  

/ ˈɛkspəˌɡeɪt /

verb

1. (tr) to amend (a book, text, etc) by removing (obscene or offensive sections)

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expurgate Cultural  

1. To clean up, remove impurities. An expurgated edition of a book has had offensive words or descriptions changed or removed.

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Other Word Forms

• expurgation
  noun
• expurgator
  noun
• expurgatory
  adjective
• unexpurgated
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of expurgate

1615–25; < Latin expurgātus, past participle of expurgāre to clean out. See ex- ¹, purge, -ate ¹

Explanation

To expurgate is to censor. Usually, people talk about expurgating bad words from something written or on TV. On TV, if you hear some words bleeped out, those words have been expurgated. In print, we can expurgate by using dashes ( — — ) or random characters like %&$#. Sometimes we can expurgate just by rewriting something so that the entire sentence with the naughty parts is gone, or by putting it into mild words. When it comes to things children read or watch, there's often the difficult question of what to expurgate and what to leave alone.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

expurgate expurgated expurgating

We lose a critical piece of our cultural knowledge – and our ability to recognize who we were so we can actually change – when we expurgate anything tricky or objectionable from the record.

From The Guardian ● Feb. 11, 2018

In fact, there had been nothing to expurgate.

From The New Yorker ● Dec. 29, 2014

In some cases it might also be a paranoia that they want to expurgate in some way.”

From New York Times ● Jan. 27, 2012

An asterisk indicated books in purgatory, redeemable if their sinner-authors would expurgate.

From Time Magazine Archive

Every time one of his children made a sound that was recognizably southern, Bull would expurgate that sound from his child’s tongue on the spot.

From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy

And with the exception of that expurgated Benchley quote, its advertising eschewed pull quotes, focusing instead on the show’s popularity: “Hundreds have seen ‘Abie’ three times or more.

From New York Times ● May 11, 2022

Only an expurgated 500-page executive summary has been made public.

From Salon ● Nov. 13, 2019

As Marina Warner wrote in her book Stranger Magic, “Galland transformed his sources, his fluent prose adding politesse and polish. … He expurgated the eroticism that heightens many passages in the original.”

From Slate ● Apr. 10, 2019

“To consent would be an admission that the expurgated parts are not indispensable,” he wrote.

From Washington Post ● Jan. 10, 2018

But even without our expurgated radio broadcast, we had learned what the authorities did not want us to know.

From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela

There was no question of expurgating particular passages.

From Time Magazine Archive

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.

From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller

If they did, how quickly we could enrich the literary heritage of American children by expurgating the classics of Europe and rewriting them in a style acceptable to the American sense of decency.

From The Book of Gud by Harold Hersey

"Happily for historic truth," says Mr. Tylor, "mythic tradition tells its tales without expurgating the episodes which betray its real character to more critical observation."

From Moon Lore by Timothy Harley

Shakespeare, with all his wonderful genius, needs expurgating if one would read him aloud comfortably to a mixed audience.

From The Meaning of Evolution by Samuel Christian Schmucker