noun, verb ·2 syllables ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   The act or an instance of eliminating contamination: a purification, a cleansing; A removal of undesirable people. countable, uncountable
2. 2
   an act of removing by cleansing; ridding of sediment or other undesired elements wordnet
3. 3
   The act or an instance of eliminating contamination: a purification, a cleansing; The cleansing of a device by flushing it with water, steam, or some other liquid or gas. countable, uncountable
4. 4
   the act of clearing yourself (or another) from some stigma or charge wordnet
5. 5
   The removal of waste from the human body; The removal of excess humors through bloodletting, induced vomiting, etc. countable, uncountable

Show 4 more definitions

6. 6
   The removal of waste from the human body; The removal of digested waste: defecation; defecation induced by laxatives. countable, uncountable
7. 7
   Vomiting; vomiting induced by purgatives. countable, uncountable

   "He had violent pains in his belly, and purgings..."

8. 8
   That which is purged: contamination, a contaminant; refuse; sin; etc. countable, obsolete, rare, uncountable
9. 9
   Synonym of purgation: the act or an instance of removing guilt or suspicion of a misdeed. countable, obsolete, rare, uncountable

Verb

1. 1
   present participle and gerund of purge form-of, gerund, participle, present

Adjective

1. 1
   serving to purge or rid of sin wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

purgepurgationpurgestoolabsolutionabstergent

Example

More examples

"Binging and purging are signs that someone may have bulimia."

Etymology

From Middle English purgynge; equivalent to purge + -ing.

Related phrases

purging cassiapurging nutpurging place

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.