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
Examples from the Web for purifier
Historical Examples of purifier
Now fill a glass nearly full of water, and stand the purifier in the glass.
Electricity for BoysJ. S. Zerbe
Zoroaster was not their founder, but was their reformer, and the purifier of their doctrines.
Mysticism and its ResultsJohn Delafield
Out of all womankind, she was designed to be my life's playmate and my soul's purifier.
Kenelm Chillingly, CompleteEdward Bulwer-Lytton
Very different is the saving breath of the great Sea; in itself it is a purifier.
The SeaJules Michelet
Its top is held up by the gas, which comes into it from the purifier.
American Inventions and InventorsWilliam A. Mowry
purifier
- a device or substance that frees something of extraneous, contaminating, or debasing matter
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 purifier
late 15c., agent noun from purify; as a type of mechanical apparatus, from 1834.
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.