expiation

From Middle French expiation, from Latin expiātiō (“satisfaction”).

• IPA^(key): /ɛkspiˈeɪʃən/

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expiation (countable and uncountable, plural expiations)

1. An act of atonement for a sin or wrongdoing.

   Synonyms: atonement, propitiation

   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 193:

     One day he came not: I was told, and truly, that business the most imperative required his personal attendance; yet I could not force the ghastly terror of his illness from my mind. I dared not tempt my fate by content—the agony which I suffered seemed a sort of expiation.

   • 1870, James Anthony Froude, chapter IV, in History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada, volume I:

     Under this plea, felons of the worst kind might claim, till this time, to be taken out of the hands of the law judges, and to be tried at the bishops’ tribunals; and at these tribunals, such a monstrous solecism had Catholicism become, the payment of money was ever welcomed as the ready expiation of crime.

   • 1935, T. S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral, part I:

     And see far off below you, where the gulf is fixed, / Your persecutors, in timeless torment, / Parched passion, beyond expiation.

2. (obsolete) The act of expiating or stripping off.

   Synonyms: plunder, pillage

   • 1595, Samuel Daniel, “(please specify the folio number)”, in The First Fowre Bookes of the Ciuile Wars between the Two Houses of Lancaster and Yorke, London: […] P[eter] Short for Simon Waterson, →OCLC:

     expiation of his immanities fore.

• expiate

• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “expiation”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

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expiation f (plural expiations)

1. expiation

• “expiation”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.