expiation

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)An act of atonement for a sin or wrongdoing.

   “One day he came not: I was told, and truly, that business the most imperative required his personal attendance; yet I could not force the ghastly terror of his illness from my mind. I dared not tempt my fate by content—the agony which I suffered seemed a sort of expiation.”

   “Under this plea, felons of the worst kind might claim, till this time, to be taken out of the hands of the law judges, and to be tried at the bishops’ tribunals; and at these tribunals, such a monstrous solecism had Catholicism become, the payment of money was ever welcomed as the ready expiation of crime.”

   “And see far off below you, where the gulf is fixed, / Your persecutors, in timeless torment, / Parched passion, beyond expiation.”

2. (countable, obsolete, uncountable)The act of expiating or stripping off.

   “expiation of his immanities fore.”