All 10 Uses of
purge
in
1984 by Orwell
- The two of them must evidently have been swallowed up in one of the first great purges of the fifties.†
p. 29..3 *
- The great purges involving thousands of people, with public trials of traitors and thought-criminals who made abject confession of their crimes and were afterwards executed, were special show-pieces not occurring oftener than once in a couple of years.†
p. 44..8
- Or perhaps — what was likeliest of all — the thing had simply happened because purges and vaporizations were a necessary part of the mechanics of government.†
p. 45..8
- The old, discredited leaders of the Party had been used to gather there before they were finally purged.†
p. 55..4
- But — though this was one of the crimes that the accused in the great purges invariably confessed to — it was difficult to imagine any such thing actually happening.†
p. 65..4
- The story really began in the middle sixties, the period of the great purges in which the original leaders of the Revolution were wiped out once and for all.†
p. 75..3
- Even at that time Winston had not imagined that the people who were wiped out in the purges had actually committed the crimes that they were accused of.†
p. 78..7
- The older generation had mostly been wiped out in the great purges of the fifties and sixties, and the few who survived had long ago been terrified into complete intellectual surrender.†
p. 86..9
- Thoughts and actions which, when detected, mean certain death are not formally forbidden, and the endless purges, arrests, tortures, imprisonments, and vaporizations are not inflicted as punishment for crimes which have actually been committed, but are merely the wiping-out of persons who might perhaps commit a crime at some time in the future.†
p. 211..3
- Even the victim of the Russian purges could carry rebellion locked up in his skull as he walked down the passage waiting for the bullet.†
p. 255..5
Definition:
-
(purge) get rid of things thought undesirableThe exact meaning of purge can depend upon its context. For example:
- "purge the government of our enemies" -- get rid of people for political reasons
- "purge my closet of everything I haven't worn in a year" -- get rid of undesired things
- "To purge yourself of crippling sorrow, you'll need to express it." -- get rid of unwanted feelings
- "I'm doing a 24-hour purge and then starting a new diet." -- emptying the intestinal tract