TAINTED • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Tainted

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/tˈeɪntɪd/ Listen

verb

Taint v. t.

To injure, as a lance, without breaking it; also, to break, as a lance, but usually in an unknightly or unscientific manner. (Obs.) "Do not fear; I have A staff to taint, and bravely."

To hit or touch lightly, in tilting. (Obs.) "They tainted each other on the helms and passed by."

Taint v. t.

To imbue or impregnate with something extraneous, especially with something odious, noxious, or poisonous; hence, to corrupt; to infect; to poison; as, putrid substance taint the air.

Fig.: To stain; to sully; to tarnish. "His unkindness may defeat my life, But never taint my love."

Synonyms: To contaminate; defile; pollute; corrupt; infect; disease; vitiate; poison.

Taint v. t. Aphetic form of Attaint.

Taint v. i. (past & past part. tainted; pres. part. tainting) To thrust ineffectually with a lance. (Obs.)

Taint v. i.

To be infected or corrupted; to be touched with something corrupting. "I can not taint with fear."

To be affected with incipient putrefaction; as, meat soon taints in warm weather.

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Etymology of 'Tainted'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Tainted" Quotes from Famous Books

... hands, and the broad, humorous smile, had not changed as the years passed him on from success to success. Mrs. Hitchcock still slurred the present participle and indulged in other idiomatic freedoms that endeared her to Sommers. These two, plainly, were not of the generation that is tainted by ambition. Their story was too well known, from the boarding-house struggle to this sprawling stone house, to be worth the varnishing. Indeed, they would not tolerate any such detractions from their well-earned reputation. The ...

— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... Though air tainted with putrefaction extinguishes flame, I have not found that animals or vegetables putrefying in inflammable air render it less inflammable. But one quantity of inflammable air, which I had set by in May 1771, along with the others ...

— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley

... fine fabric of all that was good in him ran the foul stream of hereditary evil, like a sewer. The vices and sins of his father and of his father's father, to the third and fourth and five hundredth generation, tainted him. The evil of an entire race flowed in his veins. Why should it be? He did not desire ...

— McTeague • Frank Norris

... Commission, the Council of York, oppressed end plundered us; but those hateful courts have now ceased to exist. The Lord Lieutenant aimed at establishing military despotism; but he has answered for his treason with his head. The Primate tainted our worship with Popish rites and punished our scruples with Popish cruelty; but he is awaiting in the Tower the judgment of his peers. The Lord Keeper sanctioned a plan by which the property of every man in England was placed at the mercy of the Crown; but he has been disgraced, ruined, ...

— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... straightforward people, and can be trusted to fit out a ship without fear that advantage will be taken if they are not closely watched. No danger that the pork, when opened ninety days out, will prove to be rusty, or the beef a little tainted. Hendly, Layton & Gibb are old-fashioned, respectable people. They have been already twenty years together. Hendly keeps the books, Layton makes all the purchases, Gibb fits out the vessels. Levi Eastman (Hill's cousin, Hiram's friend), now over ten years in the place, is ...

— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

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