Word of the Day

: April 12, 2020

expiate

verb EK-spee-ayt

What It Means

1 : to extinguish the guilt incurred by

2 : to make amends for

expiate in Context

Although the editorial had characterized the mayor's failure to disclose the details of the meeting as a lapse that could not be expiated, many of the city's citizens seemed ready to forgive all.

"Batman sacrifices himself at the movie's climax—it's he who takes Dent's place, not the other way around—in an attempt to expiate not only his own guilt but also to assume the sins of the entire city." — Justin Chang, The Los Angeles Times, 22 Aug. 2018

Did You Know?

"Disaster shall fall upon you, which you will not be able to expiate." That ominous biblical prophecy (Isaiah 47:11, RSV) shows that expiate was once involved in confronting the forces of evil as well as in assuaging guilt. The word derives from the Latin expiare ("to atone for"), a combination of ex- and piare, which itself means "to atone for" as well as "to appease" and traces to the Latin pius ("pious"). Expiate originally referred to warding off evil by using sacred rites, or to using sacred rites to cleanse or purify something. By the end of the 16th century, English speakers were using it to mean "to put an end to." Those senses are now obsolete and only the "to extinguish the guilt" and "to make amends" senses remain in use.