purge
UK/pɜːd͡ʒ//pɜɹd͡ʒ/
purge verb: to clean thoroughly; to rid of impurities; to cleanse; to clear of (something unwanted).
Verb
purge (third-person singular simple present purges, present participle purging, simple past and past participle purged)
- To clean thoroughly; to rid of impurities; to cleanse; to clear of (something unwanted).
- After the process, the machine purges the chamber before venting it to remove toxic gases.
- To remove by cleansing; to wash away.
- To free from sin, guilt, or burden.
- Purge away our sins, for thy name’s sake.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Psalms 79:9
- We'll join our cares to purge away / Our country’s crimes.1712 (date written), [Joseph] Addison, Cato, a Tragedy. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], published 1713, →OCLC, Act II, scene i, page 29
- To evacuate (the bowels or the stomach); to defecate or vomit.
- To cause someone to purge; to operate (on somebody) using a cathartic or emetic, or in a similar manner.
- "What did they die of?” I asked. / "Fevers. The doctor came and bled them and purged them, but they still died." / "He bled and purged babies?" / "They were two and three. He said it would break the fever. And it did. But they … they died anyway."1979, Octavia Butler, Kindred
- To forcibly remove, for example, from political activity.
- Deng Xiaoping was purged twice during the Cultural Revolution, but managed to return to power after Mao's death.
- To forcibly remove people by an organization.
- Cromwell had Colonel Pride purge Parliament of royalists who opposed Charles I's execution.
- Late triumphs of Russian science are scaring the very dogwater out of large elements in our society, and we both fear more "purging" instead of more effort at catching up.1957 October 20, Roy Bedichek, “to John Henry Faulk”, in Letters of Roy Bedichek, Austin, T.X.: University of Texas Press, published 1985, →ISBN, page 507
- To clear of a charge, suspicion, or imputation.
- To clarify; to clear the dregs from (liquor).
- To become pure, as by clarification.
- To have or produce frequent evacuations from the intestines, as by means of a cathartic.
- To trim, dress, or prune.
- Of topical skincare: to force underlying acne to rise to the surface in response to ingredients that increase cell turnover, causing a temporary increase in blemishes.
- Differin is purging my skin.
- Of skin: to undergo the process of purging.
- My skin is purging.
Noun
purge (plural purges)
- An act or instance of purging.
- An evacuation of the bowels or the stomach; a defecation or vomiting.
- Something which or someone who purges; especially, a medicine that evacuates the intestines; a cathartic.
- he prescribes a Purge or a Vomit1722, John Arbuthnot, Mr. Maitland’s account of inoculating the small-pox
- A forcible removal of people, for example, from political activity.
- Stalin liked to ensure that his purges were irreversible.
- One of the few surviving Bolsheviks with real power, Mikoyan had been brought to Moscow by Stalin in 1926, had escaped innumerable purges, and had demonstrated an uncanny ability to survive and to associate himself with the right faction at the right time.1971, Lyndon Johnson, “"I feel like I have already been here a year"”, in The Vantage Point, Holt, Reinhart & Winston, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 24
- An act or instance of the cleansing of pipes.
- A red or reddish liquid that seeps out from raw muscular meat consisting mostly of water and protein; "meat juice".
- Synonyms:
- weep
- The temporarily worsening of acne due to the introduction of skincare products that increase cell turnover, bringing underlying blemishes to the surface more quickly.
- A period of time in which normal rules supposedly do not apply; especially, a time for violence and gang war.
- The incident stemmed from a flier that circulated widely among city school students via social media about a “purge” to take place at 3 p.m., starting at Mondawmin Mall and ending downtown.2015 April 29, Adam Johnson, “Media’s Baltimore ‘Teen Purge’ Narrative Falling Apart”, in FAIR
- "Halloween must remain a celebration, the purge is not a joke, the purge is a threat," Interior Minister Christophe Castaner told reporters on Thursday.2018 November 1, “French police arrest over 100 after Halloween 'purge' night riots”, in Yahoo! News
purge meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Telugu
purge in Tamil
- துப்புரவாக்கு, மலம் நீக்கு, மாசகற்று, மீதமில்லாமல் நீக்கு, முழுதும் நீக்கு, மலம் கழித்தல்
purge in Urdu
- پاک کرنا, پیٹ خالی کرنا, صاف کرنا
purge in Bengali
- পরিষ্কার করা, নির্মূল করা
purge in Telugu
- a purge, or purging, looseness of the bowels
- భేది bhēdi
- to purge
- పారు pāru
More languagesFewer languages
- purge in Malayalam
- ശുദ്ധമാക്കുക, നിർമ്മാർജ്ജനം ചെയ്യുക
- purge in Kannada
- ಎಕ್ಕು, ಮಡಿಮಾಡು, ಚೊಕ್ಕಟ ಗೊಳಿಸು, ಹೊರಹಾಕು
- purge in Vietnamese
- thanh trừng
Examples of purge in a sentence
- Heroic medicine included the practices of bloodletting, intestinal purging, and blistering.
- Skin purging looks a lot like acne, but they are not the same.
- Team Starmer’s purge of anyone suspected of Corbynite sympathies has been strikingly successful.
Synonyms of purge
Forms of purge
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | purges |
| present participle | purging |
| past participle | purged |
| past | purged |
| Noun | |
| plural | purges |
Origin of purge
From Middle English purgen, from Old French purgier, from Latin pūrgō (“to make pure, to cleanse”), from pūrus (“clean, pure”) + agō (“to make, to do”). The slang sense derived via the 2013 film The Purge.
Words formed from purge
Words that rhyme with purge
Questions about purge
- What does purge mean?
- Purge means to clean thoroughly; to rid of impurities; to cleanse; to clear of (something unwanted).
- What is purge in Tamil?
- Purge in Tamil is துப்புரவாக்கு, மலம் நீக்கு, மாசகற்று. See Purge meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is purge?
- Purge can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce purge?
- Purge is pronounced /pɜːd͡ʒ/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of purge?
- The past tense of purge is purged.
Words near purge in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: purge (page history and authors); purge (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); purge (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); purge (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); పారు (Telugu) (page history and authors); purge (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); purge (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-purge.ogg.
Cite this entry: “purge.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/purge. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.