Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To remove erroneous, vulgar, obscene, or otherwise objectionable material from (a book, for example) before publication.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To purge; cleanse; remove anything obnoxious, offensive, or erroneous from; specifically, to free from what is objectionable on moral or religious grounds: as, to expurgate a book; an expurgated edition of Shakspere.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To purify; to clear from anything noxious, offensive, or erroneous; to cleanse; to purge.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive To edit out rude, incorrect, offensive, useless, or otherwise undesirable information from a book, CD or other publication; to cleanse; to purge.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb edit by omitting or modifying parts considered indelicate

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin expūrgāre, expūrgāt-, to purify : ex-, intensive pref.; see ex– + pūrgāre, to cleanse; see peuə- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin expurgātus, perfect passive participle of expurgō ("cleanse thoroughly").

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Examples

  • I would not 'expurgate' school editions of great authors; the frank obscenity of parts of Shakespeare is far less immoral than the prurient prudishness which declines to print it, but numbers the lines in such a way that the boy can go home and look up the omitted passage in a complete edition, with a distinct sense of guilt, which is where the harm comes in. "

    Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 Sexual Inversion Havelock Ellis 1899

  • Stewart egged Wilmore on by suggesting that the new edits make the book less "uncomfortable," and by citing other logic used by NewSouth Books to expurgate "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."

    WATCH: Jon Stewart Takes On 'Huckleberry Finn' N-Word Controversy The Huffington Post 2011

  • Monday, May 18, 2009 expurgative stupid human tricks - a New Jersey principle decided to expurgate 2 pages from Paint Me like I am a poetry book for teens ... apparently one of the poems had the F-word in it and We all know that word is hardly ever used in the teen lexicon. at

    Archive 2009-05-01 2009

  • Monday, May 18, 2009 expurgative stupid human tricks - a New Jersey principle decided to expurgate 2 pages from Paint Me like I am a poetry book for teens ... apparently one of the poems had the F-word in it and We all know that word is hardly ever used in the teen lexicon. at

    expurgative 2009

  • Stewart egged Wilmore on by suggesting that the new edits make the book less "uncomfortable," and by citing other logic used by NewSouth Books to expurgate "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."

    WATCH: Jon Stewart Takes On 'Huckleberry Finn' N-Word Controversy The Huffington Post 2011

  • I unbutton my coat, I lean into the wind—anything to expurgate the words of Nina Sergeevna.

    A Mountain of Crumbs Elena Gorokhova 2010

  • I unbutton my coat, I lean into the wind—anything to expurgate the words of Nina Sergeevna.

    A Mountain of Crumbs Elena Gorokhova 2010

  • Who is anyone to expurgate or bowdlerize the word of God?

    Lionel: Obama in Cairo: The Immutable Sapience of the Good Book(s) 2009

  • Have you felt any pressure, from librarians or critics or parents, to expurgate these books?

    The Return Of Harry Potter! 2008

  • Many Germans hoped that the fall of the Berlin wall might finally expurgate their Nazi ghosts. anything, angst over German history, both among Germans themselves and Germany's neighbors, has heightened since reunification.

    Screening Out The Dark Past 2008

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