Bowdlerise vs Expurgate: What’s the Difference?

The difference at a glance

Bowdlerise often implies a moralizing or over-zealous removal of content. Expurgate is a more technical term for cleaning up text for publication.

What does Bowdlerise mean?

verb · /ˈbaʊd.lər.aɪz/

To remove material from a text considered improper or offensive — to sanitise, censor, or clean up creative work by excising anything deemed unsuitable. Named after Thomas Bowdler, who famously censored Shakespeare for family audiences.

Bowdlerise in a sentence

Bowdlerised editions of classic novels strip the books of exactly what made them important.

To bowdlerise is to protect the work from the reader — which usually insults both.

What does Expurgate mean?

verb · /ˈɛk.spɜːr.ɡeɪt/

To remove matter considered offensive, objectionable, or inappropriate from a text before publishing or presenting it. Expurgation is bowdlerisation's Latin predecessor — the cleansing of a text to render it acceptable.

Expurgate in a sentence

The expurgated edition removed three chapters the publisher considered too explicit.

She preferred the unexpurgated letters — the expurgated ones gave a different impression of the writer entirely.

Frequently asked questions