purgatory

From Middle English purgatorie, from Old French purgatore, purgatorie, from Latin purgātōrium (“cleansing”). Cognate to English purge.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈpɝɡəˌtɔɹi/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈpɜːɡət(ə)ɹi/

• Audio (Southern England):

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• US: pur‧ga‧to‧ry
• UK: pur‧ga‧tory

purgatory (countable and uncountable, plural purgatories)

1. (Christianity) Alternative letter-case form of Purgatory.
2. Any situation where suffering is endured, particularly as part of a process of redemption.
   • 1605, Nicholas Breton, An Olde Mans Lesson, and a Young Mans Loue‎^[1], London: Edward White:

     […] many Gods breedeth heathens miseries, many countries trauailers humors, many wiues mens purgatories, and many friends trustes ruine:

   • 1774, John Burgoyne, The Maid of the Oaks‎^[2], London: T. Becket, act I, scene 1, page 6:

     I laid my rank and fortune at the fair one’s feet, and would have married instantly; but that Oldworth opposed my precipitancy, and insisted upon a probation of six months absence—It has been a purgatory!

   • 1853, Elizabeth Gaskell, chapter 25, in Ruth‎^[3]:

     It might be […] that Ruth had worked her way through the deep purgatory of repentance up to something like purity again; God only knew!

   • 1904, Upton Sinclair, chapter 10, in The Jungle‎^[4]:

     Later came midsummer, with the stifling heat, when the dingy killing beds of Durham’s became a very purgatory; one time, in a single day, three men fell dead from sunstroke.

   • 1997, J. M. Coetzee, chapter 11, in Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life‎^[5], Penguin, page 100:

     […] that would mean he would be irrecoverably Afrikaans and would have to spend years in the purgatory of an Afrikaans boarding-school, as all farm-children do, before he would be allowed to come back to the farm.

purgatory (comparative more purgatory, superlative most purgatory)

1. Tending to cleanse; expiatory.
   • 1600, Philemon Holland, transl., The Roman Historie Written by T. Livius of Padua‎^[6], London, Book 41, p. 1103:

     Last of all, the prodigie of Siracusa was expiat by a purgatory sacrifice, by direction from the soothsaiers to what gods, supplications and sacrifice should be made.

   • 1790, Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France‎^[7], London: J. Dodsley, page 272:

     This purgatory interval is not unfavourable to a faithless representative, who may be as good a canvasser as he was a bad governor.

• heaven
• hell
• limbo
• gehenna

purgatory

1. alternative form of purgatorie

purgatory

1. alternative form of purgatorie