adulteration
AmericanUsage
What does adulteration mean? Adulteration is the act of making something impure or altering its original form by adding materials or elements that aren’t usually part of it, especially inferior ones. It can also refer to a thing that has been altered in such a way, or the state that that thing is in after having been altered. Adulteration is commonly used in the context of food preparation and manufacturing in reference to the contamination of food products with additives that make them impure in some way. There are laws against adulteration, especially when the ingredients added may be harmful to people’s health. Adulteration is the noun form of the verb adulterate, meaning to make something impure by adding inferior materials or elements. Something that has been altered in such a way can be described as adulterated. Example: They’re starting to crack down on the widespread adulteration of milk and dairy products by testing them for additives.
Etymology
Origin of adulteration
1500–10; < Latin adulterātiōn- (stem of adulterātiō ); see adulterate, -ion
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Adulteration is a bitter truth in the sweet world of honey.
From Science Daily • Oct. 10, 2023
The great Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote: "Adulteration of intellectual material is as harmful socially as adulteration of food is physiologically."
From Time Magazine Archive
Pedro Rendon applies himself to the Adulteration of Milk; Antonio Pujol to Cereals; Ramon Alva Guardarrama. eldest of the group, to a simple landscape of a Mexican wheat farm, hard and exact in detail.
From Time Magazine Archive
Thus, "Adulteration" refers to the adulteration of coffee; and "Adulterants," to the substances used for that purpose.
From All About Coffee by Ukers, William H. (William Harrison)
Adulteration has been said to be another form of competition.
From Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery A Manual of Cheap and Wholesome Diet by Payne, A. G.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
