purgar

Forms

purgar (first-person singular present purgo, first-person singular preterite purgué, past participle purgado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish purgar, borrowed from Latin pūrgō (“to clean, purify”), a learned word recorded from Berceo on.^[2][3][4][1] The popular outcome of the Latin verb is porgar “to sift”, Aragonese and Catalan, which also appears in the Libro de Apolonio.^[2][5] Valencian has the learned form.^[2][5] Asturian has pulgar.^[5]

The Latin verb had an older form pūrigō, which the OLD analyses as pūrus (“clean, pure”) with the suffix -igō, while Lewis and Short take it as a contraction meaning “to make clean”.^[6][7] Corominas finds the link with the adjective plausible but uncertain, and the REW reports Thurneysen's view that the verb had a short ⟨u⟩, so that the Romance forms with ⟨o⟩ would be the original ones and those with ⟨u⟩ remodelled after the adjective.^[2][5] Wiktionary reports de Vaan's suggestion that it comes from Proto-Italic *pūr (“fire”) with agō (“to do, drive”), originally “to lead the fire about”.^[1] The adjective itself goes back to Proto-Indo-European *ph₂u-ro- (“clear, cleansed”).^[8]

The same Latin verb is Portuguese purgar, Catalan purgar, French purger and Italian purgare.^[5][9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Berceo uses it in the 1220s–1240s, of the souls purgadas “purged” who are with God in glory, in the Sacrificio de la misa, and of a sick man purgado del mal “cleansed of the illness” in the Vida de San Millán.^[11][2] The Fuero de Zorita (1218–c. 1250) has it of a woman to be cleared by ordeal, and the Becerro de Benevívere of c. 1220–1230 has the infinitive.^[11][12] In the Libro de Apolonio (c. 1240) the physicians cannot purgar la maletía “purge the illness”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Corominas notes that the verb is found in every period, but always with moral or medical senses.^[2] Alfonso X's prose already has the main senses: to clean or purify a thing, to give a sick person a laxative, to evacuate a humour, and to refine gold.^[13] Nebrija glossed it as “to clean”, with Latin purgo and mundo.^[14] Covarrubias (1611) defined it as cleaning, and among physicians the giving of a usually bitter drink, the purga.^[15]

The Diccionario de Autoridades added the moral sense of God purifying souls through trials, and that of atoning for a fault with a penalty.^[16] The Academy's 1884 edition listed the souls' suffering in purgatory and the evacuation of a humour.^[17] In the Canaries the sugar trade used it from 1509 for refining sugar in the moulds with clay.^[18] A modern sense is bleeding air or another fluid from a circuit.^[4][19] In Mexico and El Salvador the pronominal form means “to get annoyed with someone”.^[20]

Timeline

• 1220–1250 – Berceo uses it of souls and of healing.^[2][3]
• c. 1240 – the Libro de Apolonio has the popular form porgar beside it.^[2][11]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it of purging phlegm and refining gold.^[13]
• 1495 – the noun purga and the adjective purgativo are first recorded.^[3]
• 1509 – sugar purgado in the Canaries.^[18]
• 1520 – first record from the Americas, in Cuba.^[21]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades gives the senses “purify”, “refine the soul” and “atone”.^[16]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To clean or purify (purificar) something by removing what is unnecessary or harmful; to purge.^[4][1]
2. (transitive) To atone (expiar) for a fault or crime by suffering a penalty: Purgó su delito con diez años de cárcel.^[4][19]
3. (transitive) Of a soul, to suffer the pains of purgatory (purgatorio).^[4]
4. (transitive, also pronominal) To give a sick person a purgative (purga) to empty the bowels.^[4][19]
5. (transitive, also intransitive and pronominal) To evacuate a substance from the body, naturally or with a medicine.^[4]
6. (transitive) To bleed air or another fluid from the circuit of a device or machine.^[4][1]
7. (transitive) To refine; to moderate the passions; to clear someone's record so that they can hold office again.^[4]
8. (law) To dispel the suspicions or evidence against someone.^[4]
9. (pronominal) To free oneself of something immaterial that is harmful or burdensome.^[4]
10. (Mexico, El Salvador; pronominal) To get annoyed with someone.^[20]

Word family

• purgable
• purgación
• purgador
• purgamiento
• purgativo
• purga
• purgante
• purgatorio

Related words

• puro
• expurgar
• depurar
• Latin pūrgō
• French purger

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 698
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. puro
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. purgar
5. ^ a b c d e Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. purgo
7. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. purgo
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. purgar
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. purger
11. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. purgar
12. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. purgar
13. ^ a b Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. purgar
14. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 402
15. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1238
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 439
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 883
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. purgar
19. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. purgar
20. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. purgar
21. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. purgar