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 purify
absolve, atone, wash, lustrate, fumigate, expiate, purge, decontaminate, sanitize, exculpate, aerate, oxygenate, clarify, redeem, shrive, cleanse, exonerate, chasten, sublimate, deodorizeExamples from the Web for purify
Contemporary Examples of purify
"We have an Islamic government, an interior ministry trying to purify its image, and a conservative masculine society," he says.
“I picture scientists finding new ways to purify water, or diagnose disease,” Sindi says.
From just past the city limits came Ernest Hemingway to purify the American language and create another heroic legend.
Historical Examples of purify
Germany, he said, had been divinely ordained to conquer the world and purify it.
Then they strewed the grass on the sand, to purify it from taint of earth, and then they began.
Things as They AreAmy Wilson-Carmichael
That your error may not increase, I will endeavour to purify your soul.'
LawsPlato
The legislator must purify them, and if he be not a despot he will find this task to be a difficult one.
LawsPlato
In our case, however, we shall only need to purify the streams before they meet.
LawsPlato
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 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.