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A.Word.A.Day--epuration

epuration (ep-yuh-RAY-shun) noun

Purification, especially removal of officials or politicians believed to be disloyal; purge.

[From French epuration, epurer, to purify + ation.]

"Tito's epuration in 1945-46 of the Yugoslavs he considered a threat to him took the lives, Mr. Malcolm reminds us, of 250,000 people." J.B. Kelly, Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West (book review), National Review (New York), May 29, 1995.

"On the shelf, however, it remained, a brand-new ten-and-sixpenny example of what in those days Faber, mistaking pomposity for highmindedness, referred to as `paper-covered editions,' only rescued from periodic library epuration by my superstitious dread of what happens if you give away what others give to you." Jonathan Keates, The call of the wild, The Spectator (London), Jan 2, 1999.

This week's theme: words that contain the vowels aeiou once and only once.

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