purify
- to make pure; free from anything that debases, pollutes, adulterates, or contaminates: to purify metals.
- to free from foreign, extraneous, or objectionable elements: to purify a language.
- to free from guilt or evil.
- to clear or purge (usually followed by of or from).
- to make clean for ceremonial or ritual use.
- to become pure.
Origin of purify
Related Words for purification
distillation, regeneration, purgation, absolution, atonement, forgiveness, grace, rebirth, washing, redemption, refinement, ablution, purge, catharsis, baptism, salvation, bathing, rarefaction, sanctification, expurgationExamples from the Web for purification
Contemporary Examples of purification
The entire grim experience, he claims, was a source of “purification.”
This has some associations with the theory of catharsis, a view that is linked to purification and cleansing.
Why do Republicans continue to value “purification” and bloodletting over winning elections?
Any organization asking for “purification” from something just feels innately creepy and a little sinister.
Historical Examples of purification
But, for the clothworker's purpose, this purification is unnecessary.
They were going for water from a sacred stream for the bathing of purification.
Things as They AreAmy Wilson-Carmichael
For this is the purification at which she wants to arrive, and this we should understand to be her aim.
SophistPlato
If a man kill his own slave, a purification only is required of him.
LawsPlato
To accept so terrible an ordeal seemed like a purification of her dishonor.
Wild Justice: Stories of the South SeasLloyd Osbourne
purify
- to free (something) of extraneous, contaminating, or debasing matter
- (tr) to free (a person, etc) from sin or guilt
- (tr) to make clean, as in a ritual, esp the churching of women after childbirth
Word Origin for purify
Word Origin and History for purification
late 14c., originally especially in reference to Feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary, from Old French purificacion, from Latin purificationem (nominative purificatio) "a purifying," noun of action from past participle stem of purificare (see purify). General sense from 1590s.
purify
early 14c., "free from spiritual pollution," from Old French purefier "purify, cleanse, refine" (12c.), from Latin purificare "to make pure," from purus "pure" (see pure) + root of facere "to make" (see factitious). Meaning "free from extraneous matter" is recorded from mid-15c. Related: Purified; purifying.