| word | purgatory |
|---|---|
| definition | (1) According to Roman Catholic doctrine, the place where the souls of those who have died in God's grace must pay for their sins through suffering before ascending to heaven. (2) A place or state of temporary suffering or misery. |
| eg_sentence | For both of them, filled with anxiety, the long, sleepless night felt like purgatory. |
| explanation | Purgatory is the place where the soul is cleansed of all impurities, as Dante described in his great poem The Divine Comedy. Today purgatory can refer to any place or situation in which suffering and misery are felt to be sharp but temporary. Waiting to hear the results of a test, or whether you got a good job, can be a purgatory. And an endless after-dinner speech can make an entire roomful of people feel as if they're in purgatory |
| IPA | ˈpərgəˌtɔri |
Tags: mwvb::unit:20, mwvb::unit:20:word, mwvb::word, mwvb::word-cloze, mwvb::word-reverse, obsidian_to_anki
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