Noun

1. A fast or series of privations undertaken by the Cathars to purify the soul, often resulting in death.
   • 1942: There was a particularly horrible travesty of extreme unction called the ‘endura’. — Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (Canongate 2006, p. 173)
   • 2000: Guillemette was consoled by the Good Men and went through the endura, the Cathars' purifying death-fast. — René Weis, The Yellow Cross (Penguin 2001, p. 60)