expurgate

We lose a critical piece of our cultural knowledge – and our ability to recognize who we were so we can actually change – when we expurgate anything tricky or objectionable from the record.

From The Guardian ● Feb. 11, 2018

In fact, there had been nothing to expurgate.

From The New Yorker ● Dec. 29, 2014

In some cases it might also be a paranoia that they want to expurgate in some way.”

From New York Times ● Jan. 27, 2012

Bewildered Melville allowed his publishers to expurgate and his present biographer believes the bowdlerization warped his entire career.

From Time Magazine Archive

Every time one of his children made a sound that was recognizably southern, Bull would expurgate that sound from his child’s tongue on the spot.

From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy

Only an expurgated 500-page executive summary has been made public.

From Salon ● Nov. 13, 2019

As Marina Warner wrote in her book Stranger Magic, “Galland transformed his sources, his fluent prose adding politesse and polish. … He expurgated the eroticism that heightens many passages in the original.”

From Slate ● Apr. 10, 2019

If ever there were a diva unsuited to the expurgated, down-talking children’s book treatment, it’s Donna Summer.

From New York Times ● Apr. 23, 2018

“To consent would be an admission that the expurgated parts are not indispensable,” he wrote.

From Washington Post ● Jan. 10, 2018

She had gotten used to the nuns, a literature of appropriate sentiments, poems with a message, expurgated texts.

From "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents" by Julia Alvarez

There was no question of expurgating particular passages.

From Time Magazine Archive

Yossarian was busy expurgating all but romance words from the letters when the chaplain sat down in a chair between the beds and asked him how he was feeling.

From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller

Even this lying spirit will be under the necessity to avail himself of this fiery ordeal, and made to rejoice in its expurgating and cleansing efficacy.

From Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions Being a Comparison of the Old and New Testament Myths and Miracles with those of the Heathen Nations of Antiquity Considering also their Origin and Meaning by T. W. Doane

This is called "expurgating" the book; but people who disapprove often call it to bowdlerize.

From Stories That Words Tell Us by Elizabeth (Elizabeth Speakman) O'Neill

In answer to this it may be asserted that the French mind was not prepared for a broader field until it had passed through the process of expurgating, refining, drilling, and disciplining.

From Women of Modern France (Illustrated) Woman: In all ages and in all countries Vol. 7 (of 10) by Hugo Paul Thieme