Other forms: purified, purifying, purifies
To purify is to make something clean and free of what does not belong. Purify the water, purify the air, purify the metal.
In water treatment it means removing pathogens and contaminants, and the methods are among the largest public health achievements there are. In religion, purification is ritual cleansing. In metallurgy it means removing everything but the target element. Note purification; and that the Latin is purus plus facere — to make pure.
1verbpurifyTo make something clean and free of what does not belong.
“Boil the water or use tablets to purify it before you drink it.”
purify is a cleaning.
Latin purificare is purus, clean, plus facere, to make. Pure, purge and Puritan come from the same cleanness.
Proto-Indo-European
*pewH-
Latin
pūrificō
Old French
purifier
Middle English
purifien
English, today
purify
Built from
From Middle English purifien, purifyen, from Old French purifier, purifiier, from Latin pūrificō, from pūrus (“pure; clean”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA