vitiate
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
From vitiātus[1], the perfect passive participle of (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Latin vitiō (“damage, spoil”), from vitium (“vice”).
Pronunciation
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Audio: (file)
Verb
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- (transitive) to spoil, make faulty; to reduce the value, quality, or effectiveness of something
- 1838, Ralph Waldo Emerson, "An Address delivered before the Senior Class in Divinity College, Cambridge, Sunday evening, 15 July, 1838":
- The least admixture of a lie, -- for example, the taint of vanity, the least attempt to make a good impression, a favorable appearance, -- will instantly vitiate the effect.
- 1997, Andrew Miller, Ingenious Pain:
- ‘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?’
- 1838, Ralph Waldo Emerson, "An Address delivered before the Senior Class in Divinity College, Cambridge, Sunday evening, 15 July, 1838":
- (transitive) to debase or morally corrupt
- 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.
- 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.
- (transitive, archaic) to violate, to rape
- 1965, John Fowles, The Magus:
- ‘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’.
- (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.
- 2011 September 2, Dexter Filkins, “Turkey's Thirty-Year Coup”, in The New Yorker[1]:
- After the trials, Turkey's secular elite was completely vitiated.
Related terms
Translations
to spoil
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to debase or morally corrupt
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to violate, to rape
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to invalidate
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References
- ^ Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “vitiate”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
Further reading
- “vitiate”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- “vitiate”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
- “vitiate”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
Latin
Verb
(deprecated template usage) vitiāte