Definition of "expurgate" [ex•pur•gate]

• To remove erroneous, vulgar, obscene, or otherwise objectionable material from (a book, for example) before publication. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "I would not 'expurgate' school editions of great authors; the frank obscenity of parts of Shakespeare is far less immoral than the prurient prudishness which declines to print it, but numbers the lines in such a way that the boy can go home and look up the omitted passage in a complete edition, with a distinct sense of guilt, which is where the harm comes in. ""
• "Stewart egged Wilmore on by suggesting that the new edits make the book less "uncomfortable," and by citing other logic used by NewSouth Books to expurgate "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.""
• "Monday, May 18, 2009 expurgative stupid human tricks - a New Jersey principle decided to expurgate 2 pages from Paint Me like I am a poetry book for teens ... apparently one of the poems had the F-word in it and We all know that word is hardly ever used in the teen lexicon. at"