a. [ad. mod.L. expurgātōrius: see EXPURGATE and -ORY.] Of or pertaining to expurgation; disposed or tending to expurgate or clear of impurity, guilt, etc.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., II. vi. § 10. 103. Expurgatory animadversions, whereby wee might strike out great numbers of hidden qualities.
1675. Marvell, Divine in Mode, Wks. III. 22. We seem to have got an expurgatory press, though not an index.
a. 1797. Burke, Tracts Popery Laws, ii. Wks. IX. 339. The party has failed in his expurgatory proof.
1821. J. Boswell, Shaks. Wks., Advt. I. 8. There are some annotations … I should gladly have omitted, but … such an expurgatory liberty seemed to me to be going beyond the bounds of my ‘limited service.’
b. Expurgatory Index: the list of authors and writings forbidden by the Church of Rome to be read unless they shall have been expurgated. (The Lat. Index expurgatorius is now commonly used.)
1625. Ussher, Answ. to Jesuit, 513. Their Old Expurgatory Index (the one set out by Cardinall Quiroga in the yeere 1584…).
1667. Poole, Dial. Protest. & Papist (1735), 139. [The Church of Rome’s] expurgatory Indices.
1826. E. Irving, Babylon, I. II. 125. No other book … hath been permitted to escape … their … Expurgatory Indices.
transf. 1794. Mathias, Purs. Lit. (1798), 87. There … should be an expurgatory index to … Shakspeare.
