Definition of "purgative" [pur•ga•tive]

• Tending to cleanse or purge, especially causing evacuation of the bowels. (adjective)
• A purgative agent or medicine; a cathartic. (noun)

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.

• "Mystical theology is generally divided into three parts, respectively called the purgative, the illuminative, and the unitive life."
• "These states are also described as the purgative, illuminative, and unitive ways."
• "There are a great many men, even amongst the wisest and strongest of us, who benefit every year of their lives by what might be called the purgative function of literature, -- men who, if they did not have a chance at the right moment to commit certain sins with their imaginary selves, would commit them with their real ones."