the.com/purgatory

means A place or state of temporary suffering or waiting — in Catholic theology, where souls are purified before heaven; more casually, any miserable in-between.

from From Latin purgatorius, 'cleansing,' rooted in purgare (to purge, make pure — literally 'to make clean'). The noun crystallized in medieval Latin as purgatorium, naming the specific afterlife way-station Church doctrine developed around the 12th century. It entered English through Old French purgatoire. The sense of 'any tedious ordeal' — a bad job, a long layover — is a much later, secular stretching of the word, keeping the waiting but dropping the theology.