purging

English

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

purging

purging (countable and uncountable, plural purgings)

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.
The removal of waste from the human body, particularly:
1. (premodern medicine) The removal of excess humors through bloodletting, induced vomiting, etc.
2. (medicine) The removal of digested waste: defecation; defecation induced by laxatives.
(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...
(obsolete and rare) That which is purged: contamination, a contaminant; refuse; sin; etc.
(obsolete and rare) Synonym of purgation: the act or an instance of removing guilt or suspicion of a misdeed.
(dermatology) The process in which acne temporarily worsened due to the introduction of skincare products that increase cell turnover, bringing underlying acne to the surface more quickly.
- 2025 May 6, Michele Jordan, “Skin Purging: Causes, Signs, and Treatment”, in webmd.com‎^[1], archived from the original on 10 March 2026:
  Skin purging looks a lot like acne, but they are not the same. Skin purging may have many of the skin issues of acne, but it’s the storm before the calm, versus the other way around.

(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

vomiting — see vomiting

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

purging