purging

• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)dʒɪŋ

purging

1. present participle of purge

purging (plural purgings)

1. The act or an instance of eliminating contamination: a purification, a cleansing, particularly:
   1. (chiefly politics) A removal of undesirable people.
   2. (chiefly chemistry) The cleansing of a device by flushing it with water, steam, or some other liquid or gas.
2. The removal of waste from the human body, particularly:
   1. (premodern medicine) The removal of excess humors through bloodletting, induced vomitting, etc.
   2. (medicine) The removal of digested waste: defecation; defecation induced by laxatives.
3. (chiefly medicine) Vomiting; vomiting induced by purgatives.
   • 1849, The Journal of Health and Disease, page 98:

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

4. (obsolete and rare) That which is purged: contamination, a contaminant; refuse; sin; etc.
5. (obsolete and rare) Synonym of purgation: the act or an instance of removing guilt or suspicion of a misdeed.

• (removal of undesirables): purge; see also witchhunt
• (defecation): See Thesaurus:defecation
• (vomiting): See vomiting and Thesaurus:regurgitate
• (thing purged): See blood, sin, Thesaurus:vomit, and Thesaurus:feces

• "purging, n." in the Oxford English Dictionary (2007), Oxford: Oxford University Press.