Espurge

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Removing offensive or unwanted passages from a book, text or writing before it is published or read
2. Cutting out objectionable parts of a written work so that only acceptable material remains
3. To cleanse a text by deleting material judged improper, offensive or harmful to readers

Etymology: "Espurge" is an obsolete English verb, recorded in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, meaning to purge or cleanse, often in a medical or moral sense. It is borrowed from Old French "espurgier", which came from Latin "expurgare", a compound of "ex-" meaning "out" and "purgare" meaning "to cleanse", itself from "purus", "pure". So the word's core idea is simply cleaning something out. English already had "purge" from Old French "purgier" (from the same Latin "purgare"), so "espurge" is a doublet of it, a second English word from the same root that entered by a different route. The "ex-" prefix in the Latin source is preserved in the French form "espurgier", which dropped the "x" sound and took the "es-" spelling. English adopted the word during the late Middle Ages or early modern period, and it eventually fell out of use, leaving "purge" as the surviving form.

Synonyms: purge, cleanse, expurgate

Antonyms: pollute, contaminate, defile