lustrate

English edit

Etymology edit

From Latin lustratus (“lustrated”) parsed as a verb via English -ate, from lustrare, from lustrum (“ritual purification”) + o (“forming verbs”), q.v. In reference to imparting luster, further via senses of Middle French lustre, from Old Italian lustro.

Verb edit

lustrate (third-person singular simple present lustrates, present participle lustrating, simple past and past participle lustrated)

(transitive) Synonym of purify, to ritually cleanse or renew, particularly to do so with a propitiatory offering or (historical) the lustration, quinquennial ritual of the Roman censor to cleanse the city after a census.
- c. 1650, Henry Hammond, Miscellaneous Theological Works..., Vol. 3, Sermon 23, p. 503 (1850 ed.):
  We must purge, and cleanse, and lustrate the whole city.
- 1853, Charles Kingsley, chapter 20, in Hypatia:
  "Well," said Hypatia, more and more listlessly; "it might be more prudent to show them first the fairer and more graceful side of the old Myths... I wish to lustrate them afresh for the service of the gods."
- 1909, Edith Wharton, “An Autumn Sunset”, in Artemis to Actaeon and Other Poems:
  Mid-zenith hangs the fascinated day
  In wind-lustrated hollows crystalline.
(transitive, intransitive, with 'through') Synonym of pass through, traverse.
(transitive, obsolete) Synonym of look, look over, survey.
(transitive, obsolete) Synonym of luster, to impart luster to, to make lustrous.