purgative

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

The most thrilling set piece features a purgative ritual that Cervera executes with a dance choreographer’s sense of movement and a gothic artist’s eye for composition.

From New York Times • Jun. 8, 2022

The juxtaposition of such a technologically enabled act — I recorded, therefore I was — and the most basic and purgative of elements invites irony where it is least wanted.

From Washington Post • Nov. 16, 2018

And this, too, felt like a purgative end to 2016.

From The New Yorker • Jan. 3, 2017

The Council of Trent, which had been convened in response to the threat posed by Protestantism, had ended only two years previously and the counter-Reformation, with its purgative restatement of Catholic first principles, was underway.

From The Guardian • Feb. 16, 2013

As if the' air w'ere a purgative, his valve opened.

From "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole