pūrgō

Meaning

1. to clean, cleanse, clear, purge, purify
   Si inquinata erit, lavito, a foliis et stercore purgatoIf they are dirty, wash them and clean off leaves and excrement234 BCE – 149 BCE, Marcus Porcius Cato, De agri cultura 65
   Ēdūc tēcum etiam omnēs tuōs: sī minus, quam plūrimōs — pūrgā urbem!Lead out with you as well all of your [followers]: if not all [of them, then] as many [as possible] — cleanse the city!63 BCE, Cicero, In Catilinam orationes 1.10
2. to purge; cleanse by stool, vomiting
   purgat per inferna, candidum autem vomitione1956 translation by W. H. S. Jones and A. C. Andrews This purges by stool, but the white kind does so by vomiting77 CE – 79 CE, Plinius Maior, Naturalis Historia 25.51
3. to cleanse (of an illness); to heal, cure
   novi, et miror morbi purgatum te illiusI know, and I am surprised that you are cleansed of that illnessc. 35 BCE, Horatius, Sermones 2.3.27
4. to exculpate, justify, vindicate, clear someone's name
   Ego, Poene, tibi me purgatum volo.Carthaginian, I want to apologize to you (literally, “I, Carthaginian, want myself to be exculpated to you”)c. 194 BCE, Plautus, Poenulus 1410
   et id huc revorti ut me purgarem tibi.and I’ve come back here to apologize to you. (literally, “and I have returned here so that I may exculpate myself”)c. 190 BCE – 185 BCE, Plautus, Amphitruo 909
5. to apologize
   Primum cavisse oportuit ne diceres,You ought to have taken caution not to have said such a thing in the first place, but if you apologize to me, I shall have to endure itc. 190 BCE – 185 BCE, Plautus, Amphitruo 944–945
6. transitiveto expiate, lustrate
   di patrii, purgamus agros, purgamus agrestesGods of our forefathers, we cleanse the fields, we cleanse the farmersc. 50 BCE – 19 BCE, Albius Tibullus, Elegiae 2.1.17

Latīnē defined in Latin in our graded readers

Conjugation conjugation 1

Origins

Disputed. According to De Vaan, the term probably derives from Proto-Italic *pūr (“fire”) + agō (“to do”). The term would have originally meant "to lead the fire about," whence "to purify." The linguist Gregory Nagy posits a pre-form of the shape *pūrigō, which is marked by the suffix -igō. Regarding the sense development, Nagy suggests that the verb originally meant something such as "to activate, do fire," which perhaps parallels the usage of Umbrian 𐌀𐌇𐌕𐌉𐌌𐌄𐌌 (ahtimem, “fire-brazier(?)”) in a fire-ritual. Moreover, he compares the semantics Latin fumigō (“to smoke, fumigate”), which derives from fūmus (“smoke”) + -igō, and thus presumably evolved from a literal meaning of "to do smoke" to "to smoke, fumigate." Schrijver alternatively suggests that the term derives from earlier *pūrigō, *pūrigāre, itself from pūrus (“pure”). De Vaan, however, argues that a compound *pūro-agō- should produce a form with a medial long-vowel.

In English words that came into English from pūrgō

• purgepūrgō
• spurgeexpurgo
• purgationpūrgātiō

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