Word Smith: Expiation
Expiation — noun [1]:
- the act of making amends or reparation for guilt or wrongdoing; atonement. As in performing or paying for “an act of public expiation.”
- As another example, the Christian Mass is the principal church ceremony that celebrates the sacrifice of Christ for the expiation of the original sin of Adam and Eve described in the Book of Genesis in the Bible.
- In more recent examples, take Apollo Creed in Silvester Stallone’s Rocky movies. Apollo was a villain in the first Rocky film, a more nuanced antagonist in the second, a best friend and guru in the third, and a pretext for revenge and the expiation of guilt in the fourth.
- Similar words and meanings: atonement, redemption, redress, reparation, restitution, recompense, requital, purgation, penance, amends.
The noun Expiation comes from the verb Expiate, which means to make amends or atone for a wrong you or someone else has committed. Take the example of the nursary rhyme of Jack and Jill. After the incident on the hill, a mortified Jill expiated her guilt by buying Jack a brand new crown. The shiny new crown served as her compensation, or expiation, for the broken one.
Whether Jill needed to take these extraordinary steps, after Jack fell, is a topic of debate among boys and girls today.
Rocky IV anyone?
Henry E. Hooper 