purgatory

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

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 6, 2026

Helima Croft: We are in a cease-fire-with-no-oil purgatory.

From Barron's ● May 15, 2026

You can even rescue other canned beans from pantry purgatory: kidney, white, garbanzo, whatever you have on hand.

From Salon ● May 5, 2026

Denmark needed one goal to guarantee automatic qualification and send Scotland to the purgatory of the play-offs - and they were pummelling Belarus in pursuit of it.

From BBC ● Mar. 24, 2026

I can accept purgatory if heaven is beyond it.

From "Dry" by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman

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

From Slate ● Jul. 22, 2024

Like a rich novel, “About Dry Grasses” takes its time fleshing out its central players, who are each grappling with their own metaphorical purgatories.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 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

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

When Hans Wyker had seen his own town wane as Careyville waxed, he consigned the newer community, and all that it was, to all the purgatories ever organized and some yet to be created.

From Winning the Wilderness by J. N. Marchand