Word.ws English Dictionary

expiates

expiates is the third-person singular simple present indicative of expiate.

Meaning of expiate

Verb

expiate (third-person singular simple present expiates, present participle expiating, simple past and past participle expiated)

  1. (ambitransitive) To atone or make reparation for.
    • The Treasurer obliged himself to expiate the injury.1702–1704, Edward [Hyde, 1st] Earl of Clarendon, (please specify |book=I to XVI), in The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, Begun in the Year 1641. […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed...
  2. (transitive) To make amends or pay the penalty for.
    • He had only to live and expiate in solitude the crimes which he had committed.1876, Jules Verne, translated by Stephen W. White, The Mysterious Island, part 2, chapter 17
  3. (obsolete, transitive) To relieve or cleanse of guilt.
    • […] and Epimenides was brought from Crete to expiate the city.1829, Pierre Henri Larcher, Larcher's Notes on Herodotus, volume 2, page 195
  4. (transitive) To purify with sacred rites.
    • Neither let there be found in thee any that shal expiate his ſonne, or daughter, making them to paſſe through the fyre: or that demandeth of ſouthſayers, and obſerueth dreames and diuinations, neither let there be a ſorcerer,1609, The Holie Bible, […] (Douay–Rheims Bible), Doway: Laurence Kellam, […], →OCLC, Deuteronomie 18:10, page 435
  5. (transitive) To wind up, bring to an end.
    • But when in thee times forrwes I behould, / Then look I death my daies ſhould expiate.1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 22”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC, lines 3–4

Questions about expiates

What is expiates the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Expiates is the third-person singular simple present indicative of expiate.

Words near expiates in the dictionary

  1. expertships
  2. expetible
  3. expiable
  4. expiate
  5. expiated
  6. expiates
  7. expiatest
  8. expiateth
  9. expiating
  10. expiation
  11. expiational

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: expiates (page history and authors); expiate (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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