purgare

Forms

purgare (first-person singular present pùrgo, first-person singular past historic purgài, past participle purgàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] An old variant is porgare.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin purgāre (“to clean, cleanse”), a learned word according to DELI.^[3] The Latin verb was later also used in medicine and in a moral sense.^[3][4] Nocentini and REW treat it as a word continued from Latin, and REW lists Sardinian prugare in Logudorese, French purger, Occitan purgar, Spanish purgar and Portuguese purgar, and Catalan porgar (“to sieve”), also Aragonese.^[5][6]

In turn, the verb comes from Latin pūrus (“pure”), through an archaic pūrigāre, seen in Plautus' perpūrigātus, with the suffix of lītigō and lēvigō and loss of the vowel after the stress.^[2][7][8][9] Thurneysen doubted the link with the adjective and gave the verb a short vowel, which would make the Romance forms with ⟨o⟩ the original ones.^[6] Wiktionary reports other proposals, among them a compound of a Proto-Italic word for “fire” with agō (“to drive”).^[1]

From the participle Latin formed purgātīvus and purgātōrius, the sources of purgativo and purgatorio.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Nocentini dates the first record to 1260–1261 and Zingarelli to about 1261.^[5][10] DELI's early senses are reflexive: Bono Giamboni, before 1292, uses purgarsi for cleansing oneself of faults and sins.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Iacopone, before 1306, uses the verb for atoning for sins, and the Italian Marco Polo of the early 14th century for treating with a purgative.^[3] In the Convivio Dante uses it for cleaning bread “of every stain”, and he describes the second realm, “where the human spirit purges itself” (dove l’umano spirito si purga).^[2][11][3] Purgatorio itself is recorded at the end of the 13th century, in the Novellino.^[3]

In 1871 Tommaseo recorded the sense of removing obscene passages from a book, and edizione purgata followed in 1891.^[3] The noun purga took on the political sense of a purge in 1946, modelled on Russian чистка (čistka).^[3] Today the verb also means removing unwanted members from a party or a company.^[9][10]

Timeline

• 1260–1261 – First record.^[5]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses purgarsi for cleansing oneself of sins.^[3]
• Before 1306 – Iacopone uses the verb for atoning.^[3]
• Early 14th century – The Italian Marco Polo uses it for purging with a medicine.^[3]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses it for freeing from impurities.^[3]
• 1554–1565 – Purga, a purgative, is recorded in Ramusio.^[3]
• 1871 – Tommaseo records the sense of expurgating a book.^[3]
• 1946 – Purga is used for a political purge.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To cleanse, free from impurities and dross; to depurare.^[4][9][12]
2. (cooking) To remove the indigestible parts or the bad smell or taste of a food: purgare il fegato in acqua e aceto.^[4][9][12]
3. To give a purgative to.^[4][9][10]
4. (figurative) To correct a text, removing errors or indecent passages; to expurgate.^[4][9][10]
5. (figurative) To purge a group of unwanted members; to epurare.^[9][10]
6. (figurative) To free from sin; to expiate, atone for.^[4][9][10]
7. (reflexive, purgarsi) To take a purgative; figuratively, to cleanse oneself of sins, or to clear oneself of an accusation.^[10][9][13]

Word family

• purga
• purgante
• purgato
• purgamento
• purgatore
• purgatura
• purgabile

Related words

• purgativo
• purgatorio
• espurgare
• spurgare
• puro
• Latin purgo

Usage notes

In law, purgare la mora or purgare la contumacia means to end a default or a contumacy by the proper act.^[4][10]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3155
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
10. ^ a b c d e f g h Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
12. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
13. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli