the condition or quality of being pure; freedom from anything that debases, contaminates, pollutes, etc.:
the purity of drinking water.
2.
freedom from any admixture or modifying addition.
3.
ceremonial or ritual cleanness.
4.
freedom from guilt or evil; innocence.
5.
physical chastity; virginity.
6.
freedom from foreign or inappropriate elements; careful correctness:
purity of expression.
7.
Optics. the chroma, saturation, or degree of freedom from white of a given color.
8.
cleanness or spotlessness, as of garments.
Origin
1175-1225; < Late Latinpūritās (see pure, -ity); replacing Middle Englishpur(e)te < Anglo-French < Late Latin, as above
Related forms
hyperpurity, noun
superpurity, noun
Examples from the web for purity
These virtues were supported by an uncommon spirit of prayer and retirement, and a great purity and innocence of manners.
If purity is desirable eliminate the money and fame.
They are two symbiotic things that when they work together, the purity of truth comes out to all who will listen.
TO protect the purity of drinking water, water companies usually try to keep the public off the land around their reservoirs.
The lotus is venerated because of its exceptional purity.
Add the word organic, and the purity of milk's image only increases.
It all depends on the purity of the individual soldier.
To engineers, a graphic on a screen is pointless and detracts from the purity of science.
Those who held a self-image of cleanliness and purity made more harsh moral judgements on social issues.
When they were interred here, they must have appeared as symbols of purity amongst the decay.
British Dictionary definitions for purity
purity
/ˈpjʊərɪtɪ/
noun
1.
the state or quality of being pure
2.
(physics) a measure of the amount of a single-frequency colour in a mixture of spectral and achromatic colours
Word Origin and History for purity
n.
c.1200, from Old French purete "simple truth," earlier purte (12c., Modern French pureté), from Late Latin puritatem (nominative puritas) "cleanness, pureness," from Latin purus "clean, pure, unmixed; chaste, undefiled" (see pure (adj.)).