Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Inducing catharsis; purgative.
- noun An agent for purging the bowels, especially a laxative.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Purgative; purifying.
- Pertaining to or derived from cathartin.
- noun A cathartic medicine; a purge; a purgative.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Med.) A medicine that promotes alvine discharges; a purge; a purgative of moderate activity.
- adjective (Med.) Cleansing the bowels; promoting evacuations by stool; purgative.
- adjective Of or pertaining to the purgative principle of senna, as
cathartic acid.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective
purgative ; inducingcatharsis - adjective That releases
emotional tension , especially after an overwhelming experience - noun A
laxative
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective emotionally purging (of e.g. art)
- adjective emotionally purging
- adjective strongly laxative
- noun a purging medicine; stimulates evacuation of the bowels
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Ca 'is the abbreviation for the word cathartic, meaning healing.
Tucson Citizen healing 2010
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It is on this fact that they founded their method of treatment, devised by Breuer and by him termed the cathartic method, though Freud prefers to call it the "analytic" method.
Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 The Evolution of Modesty; The Phenomena of Sexual Periodicity; Auto-Erotism Havelock Ellis 1899
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Over the weekend, the student met with Norwegian Prime Minister Jen Stoltenberg and other survivors - an experience she described as cathartic.
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Whether it’s Coulter’s books, the millions of conservatives who enjoy them (hate, when cathartic, is actually quite enjoyable), or death threats against musicians who speak liberal opinions.
Think Progress » Matalin Defends Coulter’s Attack on 9/11 Widows 2006
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Activated charcoal with a cathartic should be administered.
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If you will read the literature you will find that it is referred to as a cathartic, resembling in this respect the castor bean.
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This method of dispelling them is technically known as the cathartic method, and consists simply in a frank and full confession.
The Problems of Psychical Research Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal Hereward Carrington 1919
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Both methods, the discharging, or the so-called cathartic one, and the side-tracking method evidently demand the discovery of the starting point in the service of the therapy and here again several methods are at the disposal of the psychologist.
Psychotherapy Hugo M��nsterberg 1889
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That earlier method of bringing the trauma to consciousness and making it discharge, the so-called cathartic method, removes only the particular group of disturbances but the patient remains a hysteric, and if ever new accidents should happen which would touch again those inmost repressed ideas, new hysterical symptoms would develop.
Psychotherapy Hugo M��nsterberg 1889
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Gamboge is a powerful drastic, hydragogue cathartic, which is apt to produce nausea and vomiting.
The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English or, Medicine Simplified, 54th ed., One Million, Six Hundred and Fifty Thousand Ray Vaughn Pierce 1877
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