expiate means to atone or make reparation for. Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 79 out of 100.
Why this word is great
EXPIATE — [Verb] To atone for or make amends for guilt or wrongdoing through a specific, often demanding, act. From Latin expiātus, past participle of expiō ("to atone for, to appease by sacrifice"), from ex- ("thoroughly") + piō ("to appease, to purify"). Unlike "atone" (which often implies a more general process of spiritual reconciliation) or "redeem" (which focuses on regaining something lost), "expiate" insists on the concrete payment of a moral debt to purge the offense. It is the pilgrim's barefoot journey over stones to a distant shrine, the meticulous restitution of a stolen sum with exacting interest, or the silent labor of rebuilding a neighbor's burned fence board by board—a finite pain volunteered to cancel an infinite calculus of shame.
verb
- To atone or make reparation for.“The Treasurer obliged himself to expiate the injury.”
- To make amends or pay the penalty for.“He had only to live and expiate in solitude the crimes which he had committed.”
- To relieve or cleanse of guilt.“[…] and Epimenides was brought from Crete to expiate the city.”
- To purify with sacred rites.“Neither let there be found in thee any that shal expiate his ſonne, or daughter, making them to paſſe through the fyre: or that demandeth of ſouthſayers, and obſerueth dreames and diuinations, neither let there be a ſorcerer,”
- To wind up, bring to an end.“But when in thee times forrwes I behould, / Then look I death my daies ſhould expiate.”