adulterated

English

Etymology

The adjectival sense's relation to adultery is the common theme that corruption or pollution has occurred; more at adulterate. By surface analysis, adulterate +‎ -ed.

Adjective

adulterated (not comparable)

1. Intentionally tainted with impurities (usually as motivated by cheapening the production of a food product or enhancing the psychotropic effects of a street drug).

   Near-synonyms: laced, tainted, contaminated; see also Thesaurus:contaminated

   The problem of adulterated milk has periodically reemerged as a public health menace, from New York in the 1850s to China in 2008.

   Heroin is often adulterated with fentanyl.

   • 2011 December 18, Jay Rayner, “Restaurant review: Aurelia”, in The Observer‎^[1], →ISSN, archived from the original on 15 August 2022:

     A thin, crunchy lemon and thyme rosti was essentially the pimped-up aesthetic of the Kettle chip. That's OK. I like Kettle chips.

Derived terms

• nonadulterated
• unadulterated

Related terms

• adulterant

Translations

Translations

• German: gepanscht (de)
• Spanish: adulterado (es)

Verb

adulterated

1. simple past and past participle of adulterate