purity

[ pyoor-i-tee ]

noun

1. the condition or quality of being pure; freedom from anything that debases, contaminates, pollutes, etc.:

   the purity of drinking water.

2. freedom from any admixture or modifying addition.
3. ceremonial or ritual cleanness.
4. freedom from guilt or evil; innocence.
5. physical chastity; virginity.
6. freedom from foreign or inappropriate elements; careful correctness:

   purity of expression.

7. Optics. the chroma, saturation, or degree of freedom from white of a given color.
8. cleanness or spotlessness, as of garments.

purity

/ ˈpjʊərɪtɪ /

noun

1. the state or quality of being pure
2. physics a measure of the amount of a single-frequency colour in a mixture of spectral and achromatic colours

Other Words From

• hyper·puri·ty noun
• super·puri·ty noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of purity¹

1175–1225; < Late Latin pūritās ( pure, -ity ); replacing Middle English pur ( e ) te < Anglo-French < Late Latin, as above

Example Sentences

When Johnson rose from relative obscurity to the Speaker position, one of the few pieces of information that journalists dug up was that he had been in a documentary about "purity balls" in 2015.

From Salon

Sierra Club founder John Muir rhapsodized about the purity of wilderness, supporting the push to protect Yosemite’s lands from the “dirty” influence of the native tribes who inhabited it.

From Salon

Sisters puncture the purity and singularity that American culture likes to see in its heroes.

From Los Angeles Times

It’s a sinister mode of decadence — decadent minimalism, where overt virtue signaling meets seemingly neurotic purity fantasies, where customers dance in the glow of the glare on bulk bins.

From Los Angeles Times

That helps us to see ourselves as containing unalloyed goodness, purity and virtue.

From Salon

Related Words

• cleanliness