Contaminate
adj, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 To make something dangerous or toxic by introducing impurities or foreign matter. transitive
"This water is contaminated. It isn't safe to drink."
- 2 make impure wordnet
- 3 To soil, stain, corrupt, or infect by contact or association. transitive
"Shall we now Contaminate our figures with base bribes?"
- 4 make radioactive by adding radioactive material wordnet
- 5 To make unfit for use by the introduction of unwholesome or undesirable elements. transitive
"Do not contaminate the peanut butter with the jelly."
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- 6 To infect, usually of a deadly virus. transitive
- 1 Contaminated. obsolete
"And that this body conſecrate to thee, By Ruffian Luſt ſhould be contaminate!"
- 2 Dirty, sinful, wicked, gross, etc. figuratively, obsolete
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"If you don't wash your hand before working, you'll contaminate the samples."
Etymology
First attested in the early 15ᵗʰ century, in Middle English; from Middle English contaminaten (“to defile; to infect with desease”), from contaminat(e) (“sullied, defiled; infected with desease”, also used as the past participle of contaminaten) + -en (verb-forming suffix), from Latin contāminātus, the perfect passive participle of contāminō (“to touch together, blend, mingle, corrupt, defile”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), which see for further informations. More at taste, tax, and taxi.
First attested in the early 15ᵗʰ century, in Middle English; from Middle English contaminat(e) (“sullied, defiled; infected with desease”, also used as the past participle of contaminaten), see -ate (adjective-forming suffix) and Etymology 1 for more. Participial usage up until Early Modern English.
Related phrases
More for "contaminate"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.