Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To make impure by adding extraneous, improper, or inferior ingredients.
- adj. Spurious; adulterated.
- adj. Adulterous.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- 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.
- Tainted with adultery: as, “the adulterate Hastings,”
- Debased by foreign mixture; adulterated: as, “adulterate copper,” Swift, Miscellanies.
Wiktionary
- adj. Tending to commit adultery.
- adj. Corrupted; impure; adulterated.
- v. To corrupt.
- v. To spoil by adding impurities.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To defile by adultery.
- v. To corrupt, debase, or make impure by an admixture of a foreign or a baser substance
- v. To commit adultery.
- adj. Tainted with adultery.
- adj. Debased by the admixture of a foreign substance; adulterated; spurious.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. mixed with impurities
- v. corrupt, debase, or make impure by adding a foreign or inferior substance; often by replacing valuable ingredients with inferior ones
Etymologies
- Latin adulterāre, adulterāt-, to pollute; see al-1 in Indo-European roots.
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.”
The Huffington Post: Tim Hanni: Pervsion, Corruption and Wine Appreciation
“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
“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.”
“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
“The 90% of temperature stations which are unreliable are used to adulterate by cross reference the very small number of reliable temperature stations.”
“I don't really understand why we in America have to adulterate all our food.”
“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.”
“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.”
“This stuff was vile, with the dusty oversweet industrial taste of the Chinese corn syrup that had been used to adulterate it.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘adulterate’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
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SAT Words
But only the ones that I don't already know.
abase, abash, abominate, abstruse, acclivity, accolade, accost, adroit, adulate, adulterate, adumbrate, affray and 241 more...
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My daily Wordsheets
paramour, flail, addle, adduce, adduction, adenitis, adenocarcinoma, adhocracy, adiabatic, adipocyte, adiposity, postpone and 25 more...
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