PURGATION • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Purgation

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noun

Purgation n.

The act of purging; the act of clearing, cleansing, or putifying, by separating and carrying off impurities, or whatever is superfluous; the evacuation of the bowels.

(Law) The clearing of one's self from a crime of which one was publicly suspected and accused. It was either canonical, which was prescribed by the canon law, the form whereof used in the spiritual court was, that the person suspected take his oath that he was clear of the matter objected against him, and bring his honest neighbors with him to make oath that they believes he swore truly; or vulgar, which was by fire or water ordeal, or by combat. See Ordeal. "Let him put me to my purgation."

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Etymology of 'Purgation'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Purgation" Quotes from Famous Books

... characters and made them act as they did. If any lesson at all was to be drawn from the play it was not a sociological lesson, but a moral one. The individual who sees himself mirrored in it may be moved to self-purgation; society has nothing to ...

— The Inspector-General • Nicolay Gogol

... quoted Clifford with an upward curl of his lip. "'If their purgation did consist in words, they are as innocent as grace itself.' I was a fool to trust a woman. Officer, take me where you must. Any place is preferable to breathing the ...

— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison

... attentions; and the halo which surrounded his first acclamation as Duke, and which he earned well, be it said, became dimmed by the execrations of many disgraced and suffering households. Men and women saw the bad days of Duke Alessandro revived, and Florence, after a temporary purgation, became once more the sink ...

— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley

... them wear the silent chains of brutes, the bloodthirsty souls he encloses in bears, the thieves in wolves, the deceivers in foxes; where, after successive years and a thousand forms, man had spent his life, and after purgation in Lethe's flood, at last he restores them to the primordial human shapes." —Claudian, In ...

— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... through our purgation, Once again we are thy kin; God, accept our expiation, Maiden pure of ...

— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore

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