expiate
[ek-spee-eyt]
- to atone for; make amends or reparation for: to expiate one's crimes.
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Origin of expiate
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for expiate
Contemporary Examples
These are autumnal deaths to expiate the sins of a people and appease the heavens so summer might return.
Can it, as the prophets suggest, expiate our sins and bring us closer to God?
Historical Examples
Future obedience, supposing it perfect, could not expiate past offences.
Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. IIFrancis Augustus Cox
It was some comfort to think that fate had made him expiate our weakness.
The Greater InclinationEdith Wharton
Anti-republicans can only expiate their folly under the age of the guillotine.
Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, CompleteLewis Goldsmith
Go to bed and sleep like the cherub you are, while I expiate here with my pipe.
Blue-grass and BroadwayMaria Thompson Daviess
But, whoever may have been the author, pains were taken to expiate the sacrilege.
The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2)Henry Martyn Baird
expiate
- (tr) to atone for or redress (sin or wrongdoing); make amends for
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Word Origin
C16: from Latin expiāre, from pius dutiful; see pious
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for expiate
v.
c.1600 (OED entry has a typographical error in the earliest date), from Latin expiatus, past participle of expiare "to make amends, atone for (see expiation). Related: Expiable (1560s); expiated; expiating.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper