word of the day: expiate

The word of the day is expiate:

Etymology:  < Latin expiāt- participial stem of expiāre to make satisfaction, < ex- (see ex- prefix¹) + piāre to seek to appease (by sacrifice), < pius devout. 

1. trans. To avert (evil) by religious ceremonies; to avert the evil portended by (a prodigy or prophecy). Obs. exc. Hist. 

2. To cleanse, purify (a person, a city) from guilt or pollution by religious ceremonies. Occas. Const. of. Obs. 

3. To do away or extinguish the guilt of (one's sin); to offer or serve as a propitiation for. †to expiate oneself (rare): to do penance.

4. To pay the penalty of.

5. To make amends or reparation for. 

6. intr. To make expiation for. Obs. 

7. To extinguish (a person's rage) by suffering it to the full; to end (one's sorrows, a suffering life) by death. Obs.  (OED)

"The sets, by Jasmine Catudal, rich in gold and red, offer all kinds of spaces in which singers and dancers can move about: stage, auditorium, trap room, prompter's box, catwalks.  When, at the beginning of Act III, the action goes backstage, with the Met's own back wall towering in the distance, it's as if Lepage were expiating for the colossal clautsrophobia of his 'Ring'."

 - Alex Ross, "Retaking the stage: 'The Tempest' and 'Un Ballo in Maschera', at the Met", 3 December 2012 The New Yorker