v. Rare in mod. use. [a. Fr. expurge-r, refashioned from espurger = Pr. espurgar:—L. expurgāre: see EXPURGATE.]
1. trans. a. To cleanse, purify from, of (anything unclean or objectionable). b. To purge away (anything offensive). Const. from, out of.
a. 1483. Caxton, Gold. Leg., 178/2. Desyre … expurged fro the dust of al worldely affeccion.
1853. Miss E. S. Sheppard, Ch. Auchester, II. 179. [It did] expurge [me] of all earthly.
b. 1542. Becon, Potation for Lent, Wks. (Parker Soc., 1843), 118. It is not enough … to expurge and put sin out of you.
1578. Banister, Hist. Man, I. 11 b. The pituitous excrements expurged from the head vnto the eyes.
1620. Venner, Via Recta, v. 89. [It] expurgeth the sharpe and cholericke humors by stoole.
1657. Tomlinson, Renou’s Disp., 505. Melancholical humour easie to be expurged.
2. a. To EXPURGATE (a book, etc.). b. To expunge as objectionable from a book.
a. 1635. Pagitt, Christianogr., I. iii. (1636), 170. In these Liturgies … some … seeme to be corrupted and expurged.
1662. J. Chandler, Van Helmont’s Oriat., To Rdr. He said unto me; Take all my Writings, as well those crude and uncorrected, as those that are thorowly expurged.
b. 1638. T. Whitaker, Blood of Grape, 62. We may therfore expurge this pernicious and intolerable mistake.
a. 1672. Wood, Life (1848), 168. To have that passage expurg’d.
1832. H. Melvill, in Preacher, III. 100/2. If a few portions of the Bible were expurged, it would be hard … to prove the doctrine from the remainder.
Hence Expurging vbl. sb. Expurging Index = Expurgatory Index.
1635. Pagitt, Christianogr. (1640), 105. They plainly confesse the expurging of the Indian Liturgie.
1644. Milton, Areop. (Arb.), 39. The council of Trent, and the Spanish Inquisition … perfeted those Catalogues and expurging Indexes.
1645. Bp. Hall, Peace Maker, § 20. The expurging of those [authors] of their own, whom they dare not deface.
