purgatory
See also: Purgatory
English edit
Etymology edit
From Middle English purgatorie, from Old French purgatore, purgatorie, from Latin purgātōrium (“cleansing”). Cognate to English purge.
Pronunciation edit
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈpɝɡəˌtɔɹi/
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈpɜːɡət(ə)ɹi/
- US: pur‧ga‧to‧ry
- UK: pur‧ga‧tory
Noun edit
purgatory (countable and uncountable, plural purgatories)
- (Christianity) Alternative letter-case form of Purgatory
- 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.
Related terms edit
Translations edit
Purgatory — see Purgatory
situation causing suffering
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Adjective edit
purgatory (comparative more purgatory, superlative most purgatory)
- 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.
See also edit
Middle English edit
Proper noun edit
purgatory
- Alternative form of purgatorie
Noun edit
purgatory
- Alternative form of purgatorie