Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To make impure by adding extraneous, improper, or inferior ingredients.
- adjective Spurious; adulterated.
- adjective Adulterous.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Tainted with adultery: as, “the adulterate Hastings,”
- Debased by foreign mixture; adulterated: as, “adulterate copper,” Swift, Miscellanies.
- To debase or deteriorate by an admixture of foreign or baser materials or elements: as, to
adulterate food, drugs, or coins; adulterated doctrines. - To graft; give a hybrid character to.
- To defile by adultery.
- Synonyms To mix, degrade, corrupt, contaminate, vitiate, alloy, sophisticate.
- To commit adultery.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb obsolete To defile by adultery.
- transitive verb To corrupt, debase, or make impure by an admixture of a foreign or a baser substance
- intransitive verb obsolete To commit adultery.
- adjective Tainted with adultery.
- adjective Debased by the admixture of a foreign substance; adulterated; spurious.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Tending to commit
adultery . - adjective
Corrupted ;impure ;adulterated . - verb To
corrupt . - verb To
spoil by addingimpurities .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective mixed with impurities
- verb corrupt, debase, or make impure by adding a foreign or inferior substance; often by replacing valuable ingredients with inferior ones
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word adulterate.
Examples
-
The word 'adulterate' means 'to make impure, spurious or inferior by adding extraneous or improper ingredients' and I guess this applies to learning new values and ideas as filling our heads with extraneous or improper ingredients as well.
Tim Hanni: Pervsion, Corruption and Wine Appreciation Tim Hanni 2010
-
The word 'adulterate' means 'to make impure, spurious or inferior by adding extraneous or improper ingredients' and I guess this applies to learning new values and ideas as filling our heads with extraneous or improper ingredients as well.
Tim Hanni: Pervsion, Corruption and Wine Appreciation Tim Hanni 2010
-
"adulterate" stages where "noise prevails," and "not a tongue of th 'untun'd kennel can a line repeat of serious sense."
Shakespearean Playhouses A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration Joseph Quincy Adams 1913
-
He will chatter about things refined and spiritual and godlike like himself, and he and the men who herd with him will calmly adulterate the commodities they put upon the market and which annually kill tens of thousands of babies and young children.
The Somnambulists 2010
-
For the freedom to vote, electoral documents adulterate or use fraudulent means to circumvent the popular will;
Miguel Estrada: Zelaya has “a meritorious immigration beef.” - Moe_Lane’s blog - RedState 2009
-
Meanwhile anti-foreign sentiments grew in the Tang court culminating in a decree in 845 ordering monks of the ‘Religion of Light’ to return to lay life ‘so that they will not adulterate the customs of China.’
-
I simply like pie crust too much to adulterate it by letting cheddar cheese melt all over the top.
Apple Pie Coffee Cake with Cheddar Cheese | Baking Bites 2008
-
As for whether or not homosexuals want special rights –they have all the same civil rights straights have –the right to sin, fornicate, adulterate and commit buggery in privacy with consenting adults behind their doors and even the right to commit and be faithful to a homosexual partner –but they also have the right to be straight and moral and marry one of the opposite sex and be faithful to that spouse.
-
The 90% of temperature stations which are unreliable are used to adulterate by cross reference the very small number of reliable temperature stations.
Tom's trick and experimental design EliRabett 2010
-
I don't really understand why we in America have to adulterate all our food.
Ha! I caught you, Dreyers Anne-Marie 2008
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.