purgatory

Acme has spent the past several years in cinematic purgatory after its original studio tried to bury it for a tax write-off.

From Slate ● Sep. 1, 2026

They enter the trade deadline period in a difficult spot as a team in purgatory that just fired its general manager.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 14, 2026

While this purgatory may not rattle the market like last year’s tariff battles, it will be an irritant for sectors reliant on the relationship such as autos, metals and agriculture.

From Barron's ● Jun. 29, 2026

They feel like suburban purgatory, liminal implying a state in between reality and dream.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 6, 2026

I would get through my self-imposed sentence here in purgatory, and then hopefully some school in the Southwest, or possibly Hawaii, would offer me a scholarship.

From "Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer

He could ask Washingtonians and Puerto Ricans for forgiveness over not righting their untenable political purgatories.

From Slate ● Jul. 22, 2024

Treasury officials, who are trying to brace the public for refund delays, service disruptions, interminable telephone-hold purgatories and other unpleasantries that taxpayers will face over the next few months.

From Washington Post ● Jan. 13, 2022

These upheavals and tragedies pierce the illusions we have constructed and leave us trapped and spellbound in self-inflicted and imposed purgatories.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 8, 2019

It was a modest success, yet Ms. Wyatt spent the next several years mired in various record-label purgatories, a moist, bright voice lost to time.

From New York Times ● Jun. 24, 2011

They have neither private masses, nor mangled sacraments, nor purgatories, nor pardons. 

From The Apology of the Church of England by Lady Ann Bacon