Word.ws English Dictionary

purging

purging is the present participle and gerund of purge.

Noun

purging (countable and uncountable, plural purgings)

  1. A removal of undesirable people.
    Synonyms:
    purge, witchhunt
  2. The cleansing of a device by flushing it with water, steam, or some other liquid or gas.
  3. (premodern medicine) The removal of excess humors through bloodletting, induced vomiting, etc.
  4. The removal of digested waste: defecation; defecation induced by laxatives.
    Synonyms:
    defecation
  5. Vomiting; vomiting induced by purgatives.
    • He had violent pains in his belly, and purgings...1849, The Journal of Health and Disease, page 98
  6. (obsolete, rare) That which is purged: contamination, a contaminant; refuse; sin; etc.
  7. (obsolete, rare) Synonym of purgation: the act or an instance of removing guilt or suspicion of a misdeed.
    Synonyms:
    purgation
  8. The process in which acne temporarily worsened due to the introduction of skincare products that increase cell turnover, bringing underlying acne to the surface more quickly.
    • Skin purging looks a lot like acne, but they are not the same. Skin purging may have many of the skin issues of acne, but it’s the storm before the calm, versus the other way around.2025 May 6, Michele Jordan, “Skin Purging: Causes, Signs, and Treatment”, in webmd.com, archived from the original on 10 Mar 2026

Meaning of purge

Verb

purge (third-person singular simple present purges, present participle purging, simple past and past participle purged)

  1. (transitive) 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.
  2. (transitive) To remove by cleansing; to wash away.
  3. (transitive) 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
  4. (intransitive, transitive) To evacuate (the bowels or the stomach); to defecate or vomit.
  5. (transitive) 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
  6. (transitive) 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.

See all 22 meanings of purge

Synonyms of purging

Forms of purging

pluralpurgings

Origin of purging

From Middle English purgynge; equivalent to purge + -ing.

Words formed from purging

Phrases with purging

Words that rhyme with purging

Questions about purging

What does purging mean?
Purging means a removal of undesirable people.
What is purging the present participle and gerund of?
Purging is the present participle and gerund of purge.
What part of speech is purging?
Purging is a noun.
What is the plural of purging?
The plural of purging is purgings.

Words near purging in the dictionary

  1. purgery
  2. purges
  3. purgest
  4. purgeth
  5. Purgi
  6. purging
  7. purging cassia
  8. purging cassias
  9. purging nut
  10. purging nuts
  11. purging place

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: purging (page history and authors); purge (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-purging.wav.

Cite this entry: “purging.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/purging. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.