Etymologically
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purge

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /pɜːd͡ʒ/[1]
  • US: /pɝd͡ʒ/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English purgen,[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman purger, also purgir,[5][2][6] and Old French purgier (“to wash, clean; to refine, purify”),[2][3][7] and partly directly from Latin pūrgō (“to cleanse, purify”),[2][6] from Old Latin pūrigō,[6][2][8] formed from pūrus (“clean, pure”), the source of pure, and the root of agō (“to drive, do”),[2][8][6][4] from Proto-Indo-European *ag- (“to drive, draw out”).[2] The Anglo-Norman verb is recorded from the second half of the 12th century, already for purifying, refining, threshing grain, cleansing a wound and clearing someone of guilt.[9] The Latin verb is also the source of purgar and purgare.[2] The noun comes from the verb, or perhaps partly from Middle French purge (“acquittal; purgative treatment”).[5][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

To clear oneself of an accusation or suspicion of guilt: about 1300, in a Middle English life of Thomas Becket.[5][2][6]

Semantic evolution

In the 14th century the verb spread from clearing a person's name to cleansing in general: to expel waste matter from the body (1340, in the Ayenbite), to make something physically clean (about 1350), and to cleanse the soul of sin.[5][2][7] Chaucer used it, about 1390, for ridding one's body of harmful matter.[5] In Trevisa (before 1398) a medicine was said to purge, to empty the bowels.[5] The idea of removing unwanted members from a group appears in the noun in 1598,[5] and Etymonline dates the figurative sense "rid of objectionable elements or members" to the 1580s.[2] The best-known early case is Pride's Purge, the exclusion of Members of Parliament in December 1648, so called from 1681.[5][2] The modern political sense of the verb, ridding a party or state of undesirable people, is dated by the Shorter Oxford to the late 19th century,[7] and the noun was used of the Soviet Union by 1933.[2] The noun's first sense, in 1447, was a legal one, the clearing of a charge, now obsolete.[5][6][2] Since 1918 for the noun and 1929 for the verb, purge has also been a technical term for flushing a container or apparatus with a gas or liquid.[5]

Timeline

  • c. 1300 – to clear oneself of an accusation.[5][2]
  • 1340 – to expel waste matter from the body.[5]
  • c. 1350 – to make physically clean.[5]
  • c. 1384 – to prune a tree (obsolete by 1717).[5]
  • before 1398 – to act as a purgative.[5]
  • 1447 – noun, the clearing of a legal charge (obsolete).[5][6]
  • 1593 – noun, a purgative medicine.[5][8]
  • 1598 – noun, an act of removing undesirable elements.[5]
  • 1681 – Pride's Purge (of December 1648).[5]
  • 1918 – noun, the flushing of apparatus with a gas or liquid; the verb from 1929.[5]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To rid an organization, party or state of people regarded as disloyal or undesirable, or to remove such people from it: The new leader purged the army of his rivals.[10][8][7]
  2. To rid something of impurities or unwanted elements; to cleanse: to purge the files of outdated records.[10][8][5]
  3. To free a person or the soul from sin or guilt.[10][7][8]
  4. To clear a person, or oneself, of a charge or suspicion.[10][8][5]
  5. To empty the bowels, or cause someone to do so, as with a laxative; to vomit or make oneself vomit.[10][8][5]
  6. To flush a pipe or container with a gas or liquid to clear out what it holds.[5][7]

Noun

  1. An act of purging, especially the removal of people regarded as undesirable from an organization or state: a purge of the party leadership.[10][8][5]
  2. Something that purges, especially a purgative medicine.[8][5][7]

Word family

  • purger
  • purgeable
  • purgation
  • unpurged

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  4. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  9. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  10. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins