Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- transitive v. To make impure by adding extraneous, improper, or inferior ingredients.
- adj. Spurious; adulterated.
- adj. Adulterous.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- adj. Tending to commit adultery.
- adj. Corrupted; impure; adulterated.
- v. To corrupt.
- v. To spoil by adding impurities.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- adj. Tainted with adultery.
- adj. Debased by the admixture of a foreign substance; adulterated; spurious.
- intransitive v. To commit adultery.
- transitive v. To defile by adultery.
- transitive v. To corrupt, debase, or make impure by an admixture of a foreign or a baser substance
from The 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.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- 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
Examples
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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.
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"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
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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.
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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
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The 90% of temperature stations which are unreliable are used to adulterate by cross reference the very small number of reliable temperature stations.
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I don't really understand why we in America have to adulterate all our food.
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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.’
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I simply like pie crust too much to adulterate it by letting cheddar cheese melt all over the top.
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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.
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This stuff was vile, with the dusty oversweet industrial taste of the Chinese corn syrup that had been used to adulterate it.
Comments
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