cathartic

adj
/kəˈθɑɹtɪk/US

Etymology

Learned borrowing from New Latin catharticus, from Ancient Greek καθαρτικός (kathartikós).

  1. learned borrowing from catharticus

Definitions

  1. Purgative

    Purgative; inducing mental or physical catharsis.

    • Shaving, my favorite activity, is very cathartic.
  2. That which releases emotional tension, especially after an overwhelming experience.

    • For some, Saturday’s protests were cathartic, a show of force and solidarity by progressives who had struggled to pick themselves up from last November’s election defeat.
    • I don’t know if [Kamala] Harris found writing 107 Days cathartic, but reading it certainly wasn’t.
  3. A laxative.

    • The disease was regarded as pneumonia so far advanced that suppuration seemed to have supervened; bleeding, blisters, expectorants, and cathartics diminished the symptoms; the pulse continued frequent, hard, full, but always regular.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for cathartic. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA