vitiate
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Contents |
English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From vitiātus, the perfect passive participle of Latin vitiō (“damage, spoil”), from vitium (“vice”).
Pronunciation[edit]
Verb[edit]
vitiate (third-person singular simple present vitiates, present participle vitiating, simple past and past participle vitiated)
- (transitive) to spoil, make faulty; to reduce the value, quality, or effectiveness of something
- 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, chapter 12
- There was excellent blood in his veins—royal stuff; though sadly vitiated, I fear, by the cannibal propensity he nourished in his untutored youth.
- 1997: ‘Mr Rose,’ says the Physician, ‘this man was brought to us from Russia. Precisely such a case of vitiated judgment as I describe at length in my Treatise on Madness. Mayhap you have read it?’ — Andrew Miller, Ingenious Pain
- 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, chapter 12
- (transitive) to debase or morally corrupt
- 1890, Leo Tolstoy, The Slavery of Our Times
- The robber does not intentionally vitiate people, but the governments, to accomplish their ends, vitiate whole generations from childhood to manhood with false religions and patriotic instruction.
- 1890, Leo Tolstoy, The Slavery of Our Times
- (transitive, archaic) to violate, to rape
- 1965: ‘Crush the cockatrice,’ he groaned, from his death-cell. ‘I am dead in law’ – but of the girl he denied that he had ‘attempted to vitiate her at Nine years old’; for ‘upon the word of a dying man, both her Eyes did see, and her Hands did act in all that was done’. — John Fowles, The Magus
- (transitive) to make something ineffective, to invalidate
- 1734, William Stukeley, Of the Gout, page 78:
- ...all the hinges of the animal frame are subverted, every animal function is vitiated; the carcass retains but just life enough to make it capable of suffering.
- 1734, William Stukeley, Of the Gout, page 78:
Related terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
to spoil
to debase or morally corrupt
|
to violate, to rape
|
External links[edit]
- vitiate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
- vitiate in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
- vitiate at OneLook Dictionary Search
Latin[edit]
Verb[edit]
vitiāte
- first-person plural present active imperative of vitiō
