purgatories

noun

plural of purgatory
1
as in infernos
a temporary place or state in which the souls of people who die make amends for their sins It was a summer job that felt like purgatory to the teen.

Related Words

Relevance

Dissimilar Words
2
as in nightmares
a place or state of temporary suffering We found ourselves trapped in the purgatory of a rush-hour traffic jam.

Related Words

Dissimilar Words

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for purgatories
  1. infernos
  2. nightmares
  3. hells
  4. curses
  5. underworlds
  6. horrors
  7. abysses
  8. ordeals
Noun
  • Six days later, powerful Santa Ana winds kicked up smoldering embers that sparked one of Los Angeles’ most devastating infernos.
    — Char Miller, Time, 30 June 2026
  • Now, infernos sweep through populous towns and cities.
    — Susie Neilson, San Francisco Chronicle, 2 July 2025
Definition of infernos
Noun
  • Now imagine all their parents having nightmares that this was their university experience.
    — Brian Truitt, USA Today, 1 July 2026
  • Set amid the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, the tragic tale of Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) is famous for allowing real nightmares to masquerade as bloody fairytales.
    — Alison Foreman, IndieWire, 30 June 2026
Definition of nightmares
Noun
  • Smith stays largely mum on the news of the day, be that Kirk’s killing, or ICE raids, or whatever hells await in the coming weeks.
    — Sam Kestenbaum, Vulture, 2 Jan. 2026
  • The protagonist's youth doesn't defang the story, as Silent Hill f wastes no time thrusting Hinako and her friends into their personal hells.
    — Zackery Cuevas, PC Magazine, 23 Sep. 2025
Definition of hells
Noun
  • Morgan and her Judgment Day cronies tried to bribe Danhausen to put curses on their opponents.
    — Ryan Gaydos, FOXNews.com, 28 June 2026
  • In baseball, curses are no joking matter, and the Curse of the FTD Burger might now have befallen the team.
    — Bill Shaikin, Los Angeles Times, 26 June 2026
Definition of curses
Noun
  • When the gang comes to the attention of Major Chester Campbell, a DCI in the Royal Irish Constabulary, the wheels are set in motion for adventures through the dangerous underworlds of early 20th-century Britain.
    — Connor Sturges, Condé Nast Traveler, 18 Mar. 2026
  • For Aronofsky, the city’s ethnic blend has no special claim on virtue; there seem to be as many criminal underworlds as there are demographic groups.
    — Richard Brody, New Yorker, 28 Aug. 2025
Definition of underworlds
Noun
  • Many of its founding members had seen the horrors of World War I up close (Breton and several others had served in the French army) and blamed their fathers’ generation for the carnage.
    — Susan Rubin Suleiman, The New York Review of Books, 4 July 2026
  • Netflix is releasing a new game show, one that combines the popularity of Squid Game, the timeless charms of the live-action Wonka experience, and the unwanted ubiquity of technofascist horrors beyond our comprehension.
    — Rebecca Alter, Vulture, 30 June 2026
Definition of horrors
Noun
  • Jean-Pierre is an artifact of an age that looks recent on paper but feels prehistoric in practice—the age of pantsuits, the word ’empowerment,’ the musical Hamilton, the cheap therapeutic entreaties to ‘work on yourself’ and ‘lean in’ to various corporate abysses.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 17 Dec. 2025
  • On the other side of the country, Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport, a longtime reader favorite, is a warm alternative to sterile airport abysses.
    — Hannah Towey, Condé Nast Traveler, 4 Oct. 2024
Definition of abysses
Noun
  • People who have been at this work longer, or have survived similar ordeals, can help a mentee see around corners.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 30 June 2026
  • Meanwhile, Phillips said, victims are left to live with the impacts of the perpetrators’ actions — with the survivors in this case forced to continue to relive their ordeals as the case continues on to the Court of Appeal.
    — Chantal Da Silva, NBC news, 3 June 2026
Definition of ordeals
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Browse Nearby Words

purgatives
purgatories
purgatory
See all Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Purgatories.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/purgatories. Accessed 7 Jul. 2026.

Copy Citation

More from Merriam-Webster on purgatories

Nglish: Translation of purgatories for Spanish Speakers

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

Popular in Grammar & Usage

See More

Is that lie 'bald-faced' or 'bold-faced'?

'A' or 'an'? What about before 'h'? An Indefinite Article Guide

Why is '-ed' sometimes pronounced at the end of a word?

Commonly Misspelled Words

How to Use Em Dashes (—), En Dashes (–) , and Hyphens (-)
See More

Popular in Wordplay

See More

14 Phobias You Probably Haven't Heard Of

The Longest Long Words List

One-Word Oxymorons: Bittersweet, Spendthrift, and More

Ten Words Ending with a Silent ‘T’

12 Lovely and Unusual Words for the Natural World
See More

Popular

See More

Is that lie 'bald-faced' or 'bold-faced'?

14 Phobias You Probably Haven't Heard Of

The Longest Long Words List
See More

Games & Quizzes

See All
Play Quordle: Guess all four words in a limited number of tries. Each of your guesses must be a real 5-letter word.
Quordle Can you solve 4 words at once?
Play Blossom: Solve today's spelling word game by finding as many words as you can using just 7 letters. Longer words score more points.
Blossom Pick the best words!
Play Missing Letter: a crossword with a twist. Each of the 25 puzzle words start with a different letter of the alphabet. Which letter is missing?
The Missing Letter A daily crossword with a twist
hangman letters and game
Hangman Lightning Round Figure out which word fits in the blanks.
See All