Definition
To clear, cleanse, or exonerate from a legal charge, imputation of guilt, or finding of contempt. In legal usage, to purge means to formally satisfy or remove a legal burden — most commonly by bringing oneself into compliance with a court order, thereby terminating liability for contempt, or by clearing an estate of encumbrances.
The term operates in two primary legal contexts:
1. PURGE OF CONTEMPT: A person held in civil contempt purges that contempt by complying with the court's underlying order — paying the ordered sum, producing the document, or taking the required action. Purging is the mechanism by which civil contempt ceases; it is what distinguishes civil contempt (coercive, terminable by compliance) from criminal contempt (punitive, not removable by later compliance).
2. PURGE OF ENCUMBRANCES (historical): In French and civil law systems, the purge of hypothèques (mortgages or privileges) describes the formal legal procedure by which a purchaser of real property clears the title of all prior charges and encumbrances, following prescribed legal formalities. This usage entered English legal vocabulary through civilian influence and appears in sources treating Louisiana and comparative property law.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A forcible removal of people from political activity; an act of cleansing pipes or systems; an evacuation of the bowels; a red liquid seeping from raw meat.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To cleanse or purify by separating off whatever is impure or superfluous; to operate as a cathartic; to clear from guilt.
The everyday meaning of "purge" emphasizes forcible, often violent removal — whether of people, waste, or impurities. The legal meaning is narrower and often operates in the opposite direction: a person purges contempt not by being removed but by acting affirmatively to comply. The legal usage carries a sense of restoration and exoneration, not expulsion.
Common Confusion
PURGE vs. PARDON vs. EXPUNGEMENT: These terms are sometimes loosely conflated in lay writing but are legally distinct. A pardon is an executive act forgiving a criminal offense. Expungement is a court-ordered sealing or destruction of criminal records. Purging contempt is neither — it is the satisfaction of a coercive order and extinguishes the contempt itself by compliance. A person who purges contempt has not been pardoned; they have simply done what the court required.
CIVIL CONTEMPT vs. CRIMINAL CONTEMPT (relevance of purge): Purge is a concept with teeth only in civil contempt. Criminal contempt, being punitive, cannot be purged after the fact. Researchers encountering historical uses of "purge" in contempt proceedings should determine which species of contempt is at issue before drawing conclusions.
Why It Matters in Research
The contempt-purge relationship is one of the most operationally important connections in civil procedure research. Historical cases frequently turn on whether a party was given a "purge condition" — a specified act that would end the contempt — and whether that condition was possible to perform. Courts have long held that civil contempt is improper where the party lacks the present ability to comply, because there is nothing to purge. Researchers tracing the boundaries of civil versus criminal contempt will encounter "purge" as a technical marker.
In historical sources, "purge" also appears in older oath-related contexts. The Scottish practice source in Black's 2nd edition references being "purged of partial counsel" — a preliminary oath examination of witnesses to confirm they had not been bribed or coached. This usage has no modern domestic counterpart but will surface in early common law and Scottish legal materials.
The civil-law sense (purge des hypothèques) is almost entirely absent from modern American legal research but appears regularly in Louisiana property law materials, French-influenced treatises, and comparative property scholarship. Researchers working in those areas should note that "purge" in that context means title clearing, not contempt resolution.
Trap for historical researchers: In older English and ecclesiastical sources, "purge" could describe the act of clearing oneself from a charge by one's own oath — a vestige of compurgation, the medieval procedure by which an accused denied guilt under oath supported by oath-helpers (compurgators). This procedural sense is extinct in modern law but present in pre-19th-century materials. Anderson's entry gestures toward this usage. Conflating it with modern contempt-purge doctrine would be an error.
Historical Dictionary Support
The four source dictionaries are in close agreement on the core definition: to cleanse or clear from a charge or imputation of guilt. Black's (both editions) and Burrill converge on identical language. Anderson adds the practical civil contempt application — clearing a court's finding that no contempt was intended — which is the most operationally current of the historical formulations.
Black's 1st edition is notable for including the French civil law term purge des hypothèques, citing Duverger. This comparative reach is absent from Burrill and Anderson, suggesting Black drew from a broader civilian tradition. The 2nd edition of Black's adds the Scottish "purged of partial counsel" usage, illustrating the term's earlier procedural range in oath-based examination.
None of the historical dictionaries engages the distinction between civil and criminal contempt in relation to purge — a distinction that became more doctrinally developed in American courts through the 20th century. Historical sources therefore do not fully capture what has become the term's primary legal significance.
Jurisdictional Note
The contempt-purge framework is consistent across American jurisdictions, though the specific conditions courts attach to civil contempt orders (the purge conditions) vary by practice. Louisiana retains traces of the civil-law property sense through its mixed legal heritage. Researchers in Scottish or older English ecclesiastical materials will encounter oath-based purge procedures not present in American sources.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See: Contempt (civil contempt, purge conditions, coercive vs. punitive contempt)
See: Mortgage Discharge / Encumbrances (for the civil-law hypothèque sense)