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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Expurgate

Expurgate \Ex"pur*gate\ ([e^]ks"p[u^]r*g[=a]t or [e^]ks*p[^u]r"g[=a]t; 277), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Expurgated ([e^]ks`p[u^]r*g[=a]"t[e^]d); p. pr. & vb. n. Expurgating ([e^]ks`p[u^]r*g[=a]"t[i^]ng).] [L. expurgatus, p. p. of expurgare to purge, purify; ex out, from + purgare to cleanse, purify, purge. See Purge, and cf. Spurge.] To purify; to clear from anything noxious, offensive, or erroneous; to cleanse; to purge; as, to expurgate a book.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
expurgate

1620s, "to purge" (in anatomy), back-formation from expurgation or from Latin expurgatus, past participle of expurgare "to cleanse out, purge, purify." Related: Expurgated; expurgating. The earlier verb was simply expurge (late 15c.), from Middle French expurger. Meaning "remove (something offensive or erroneous) from" is from 1670s.

Wiktionary
expurgate

vb. (context transitive English) To edit out rude, incorrect, offensive, useless, or otherwise undesirable information from a book, CD or other publication; to cleanse; to purge.

WordNet
expurgate

v. edit by omitting or modifying parts considered indelicate; "bowdlerize a novel" [syn: bowdlerize, bowdlerise, castrate, shorten]

Usage examples of "expurgate".

When she realized he had expurgated the Arabian Nights, she had been grateful for his kindness but had not imagined he might find the stories equally disconcerting.

Nonetheless, one evening about the middle of the month he finished reading aloud to her his expurgated version of the Arabian Nights stories.

The expurgated details of the scandal she had been retailing to her daughter had included the usual maid.

Bourget and the others know only one plan, and when that is expurgated there is nothing left of the book.

He prayed through all the frozen petitions of his expurgated form of supplication, and not a single heart was soothed or lifted, or reminded that its sorrows were struggling their way up to heaven, borne on the breath from a human soul that was warm with love.

She could tell Richard about last night not the whole truth, that would be impossible, but an expurgated version, without mentioning David.

It was as if he was part of some older thing, of which Homo sapiens in a bowler hat was an expurgated edition.

With a series of broad strokes he expurgated those parts of the text that offended him.

Yossarian was busy expurgating all but romance words from the letters when the chaplain sat down in a chair between the beds and asked him how he was feeling.

Sometimes it seems as if the body, relieved of its effete materials, renewed its youth after one of these quiet, expurgating, internal fractional cremations.

Weems is re-reading the report with renewed urgency, in the event it requires expurgating on the stroll to the copy machine.

I gave him an expurgated edition of Harlan's recovery from the drug, intimating that'suspicions had existed in certain minds' over the cause of Harlan's unexpected collapse.

A much expurgated entry scrolled past, ending with the Code Four restriction.