Definitions

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

  • adjective Serving to purify of sin; expiatory.
  • adjective Of, relating to, or resembling purgatory.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Of or pertaining to purgatory; expiatory.

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

  • adjective Of or pertaining to purgatory; expiatory.

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

  • adjective Of, pertaining to, or resembling purgatory
  • adjective That purifies by removing sin; expiatory

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

  • adjective of or resembling purgatory
  • adjective serving to purge or rid of sin

Etymologies

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Examples

  • There is no reference to anything in the nature of what Roman Catholics call purgatorial fires.

    Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) Alexander Maclaren 1868

  • These characters wander through a world strewn with trash and wreckage, and many of them present themselves to Franz as suicides, suggesting that he's in some kind of purgatorial limbo for lost souls both the gangster boss Pums and Franz's discarded girlfriend Fränze tell him that they've committed suicide.

    Archive 2008-01-01 Ed Howard 2008

  • These characters wander through a world strewn with trash and wreckage, and many of them present themselves to Franz as suicides, suggesting that he's in some kind of purgatorial limbo for lost souls both the gangster boss Pums and Franz's discarded girlfriend Fränze tell him that they've committed suicide.

    1/14: Berlin Alexanderplatz (Epilogue) Ed Howard 2008

  • Now Lucifer (Ray Wise, who played Laura Palmer's killer dad on "Twin Peaks") is here to collect, and he wants Sam to take on a second job as a kind of purgatorial bounty hunter: Sam's task is to hunt down escapees from hell.

    Fall Preview: Television 2007

  • A common view is that this "purgatorial" version of Gehinnom lasts no longer than twelve months.

    Canterbury Tales by Taylor Marshall 2008

  • Now Lucifer (Ray Wise, who played Laura Palmer’s killer dad on “Twin Peaks”) is here to collect, and he wants Sam to take on a second job as a kind of purgatorial bounty hunter: Sam’s task is to hunt down escapees from hell.

    Fall Arts: Television 2007

  • There's the ancient paterfamilias who won't even think of retiring, leaving Rick rather like Prince Charles, were he brokering jetsam in Vegas in a purgatorial wait for unambiguous control of the enterprise.

    Who Needs an MBA When We Have 'Dog the Bounty Hunter'? Eric Felten 2011

  • There were about ten of us in the theater, and that included me and three friends, who wished to accompany me on the minor purgatorial journey, if only to see a stern Tom Hanks working in anti-laconic fashion to save a CGI-constructed Vatican from destruction by an antimatter bomb.

    Science 2009

  • There were about ten of us in the theater, and that included me and three friends, who wished to accompany me on the minor purgatorial journey, if only to see a stern Tom Hanks working in anti-laconic fashion to save a CGI-constructed Vatican from destruction by an antimatter bomb.

    Film 2009

  • Seven law lords ruled last week against attempts by administrators for Lehman Brothers to recover funds paid out to several creditors under a lending arrangement of purgatorial complexity called the "Dante Programme".

    New report warns of a 'football bubble crash' unless spending is cut 2011

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