purgatory

From Latin purgātōrium (“cleansing”). Cognate to English purge.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈpɝɡəˌtɔɹi/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈpɜːɡətɹi/
• US: pur‧ga‧to‧ry
• UK: pur‧ga‧tory

purgatory (countable and uncountable, plural purgatories)

1. (Christianity) Alternative letter-case form of Purgatory
2. Any situation where suffering is endured, particularly as part of a process of redemption.
   • 1605, Nicholas Breton, An Olde Mans Lesson, and a Young Mans Loue, London: Edward White,

     […] many Gods breedeth heathens miseries, many countries trauailers humors, many wiues mens purgatories, and many friends trustes ruine:

   • 1774, John Burgoyne, The Maid of the Oaks, London: T. Becket, Act I, Scene 1, p. 6,

     I laid my rank and fortune at the fair one’s feet, and would have married instantly; but that Oldworth opposed my precipitancy, and insisted upon a probation of six months absence—It has been a purgatory!

   • 1853, Elizabeth Gaskell, Ruth, Chapter 25,

     It might be […] that Ruth had worked her way through the deep purgatory of repentance up to something like purity again; God only knew!

   • 1904, Upton Sinclair, The Jungle, Chapter 10,

     Later came midsummer, with the stifling heat, when the dingy killing beds of Durham’s became a very purgatory; one time, in a single day, three men fell dead from sunstroke.

   • 1997, J. M. Coetzee, Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life, Penguin, Chapter 11, p. 100,

     […] that would mean he would be irrecoverably Afrikaans and would have to spend years in the purgatory of an Afrikaans boarding-school, as all farm-children do, before he would be allowed to come back to the farm.

purgatory (comparative more purgatory, superlative most purgatory)

1. Tending to cleanse; expiatory.
   • 1600, Philemon Holland (translator), The Roman Historie Written by T. Livius of Padua, London, Book 41, p. 1103,

     Last of all, the prodigie of Siracusa was expiat by a purgatory sacrifice, by direction from the soothsaiers to what gods, supplications and sacrifice should be made.

   • 1790, Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, London: J. Dodsley, p. 272,

     This purgatory interval is not unfavourable to a faithless representative, who may be as good a canvasser as he was a bad governor.

• heaven
• hell
• limbo
• gehenna