adulterate
Americanverb (used with object)
adjective
-
impure or debased; cheapened in quality or purity.
verb
adjective
-
adulterated; debased or impure
-
a less common word for adulterous
Usage
What does adulterate mean? To adulterate means to make something impure or alter its original form by adding materials or elements that aren’t usually part of it, especially inferior ones. Adulterate 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 this, especially when the ingredients added may be harmful to people’s health. It can also be used in a less serious way to refer to adding ingredients thought to be unnecessary, as in I would never adulterate coffee with sugar or cream. Adulterate is also commonly used in a more general way to refer to any action that alters something in a way that people think makes it impure or inferior. The noun form of adulterate is adulteration. The past tense form adulterated can also be used as an adjective, as in Officials confiscated the adulterated foods. Less commonly, adulterate itself can also be used as an adjective in the same way. Example: Some sellers were caught adulterating the spices by adding fillers.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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adulteratesimple
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adulteratessimple
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have adulteratedperfect
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has adulteratedperfect
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am adulteratingprogressive
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are adulteratingprogressive
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is adulteratingprogressive
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have been adulteratingperfect progressive
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has been adulteratingperfect progressive
Past
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adulteratedsimple
-
had adulteratedperfect
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was adulteratingprogressive
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were adulteratingprogressive
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had been adulteratingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of adulterate
1580–90; < Latin adulterātus mixed, adulterated (past participle of adulterāre ), equivalent to ad- ad- + -ulter (perhaps combining form of alter other; see alter) + -ātus -ate 1
Explanation
If you adulterate something, you mess it up. You may not want to adulterate the beauty of freshly fallen snow by shoveling it, but how else are you going to get to work? The verb adulterate comes from the Latin word adulterare, which means “to falsify,” or “to corrupt.” Whenever something original, pure, fresh, or wholesome is marred, polluted, defaced, or otherwise made inferior, it has been adulterated. A vitamin company might issue a recall if they learn that one of their products was adulterated during production. And if you hate dried fruit, you might complain that your grandma adulterates her oatmeal cookies with raisins.
Vocabulary lists containing adulterate
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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Grade 10, List 3
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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.
See Examples For:
It is one thing to alter the competition, another to adulterate or corrupt it - La Liga accepts the first suggestion, but not the second.
From BBC ● Oct. 22, 2025
Now, he can rest easy: There's no economic incentive to adulterate his product.
From Salon ● Aug. 2, 2023
Little five-spice seasoning or herbs adulterate this meat.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 14, 2021
“We don’t believe chrism oil was taken from the church and used to adulterate this statue,” Winder said.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 18, 2018
Wherever the temptation to adulterate is considerable and the consequence of adulteration to public health great, the community should not accept the risk that arises from competition except within the narrowest possible limits.
From Twentieth Century Socialism What It Is Not; What It Is: How It May Come by Kelly, Edmond
But no matter how any culture adulterates this, chicken soup remains a familiar, familial elixir that hearkens back to when your mom simmered a pot for you on a cold, damp day.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 16, 2023
L invades her home, adulterates it with his grimace, and then turns his canvas in another direction.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 28, 2021
Schamus cuts or adulterates everything in the novel that’s an audacity of form or a leap of vision.
From The New Yorker ● Aug. 2, 2016
This triangulating trend developed overseas: For the European market, Coca-Cola adulterates its Fanta with acesulfame-K and aspartame, and slips stevia into its cans of Sprite.
From Slate ● May 13, 2013
Gold adulterates one thing only,—the human heart.—Marguerite de Valois.
From Many Thoughts of Many Minds A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age by Klopsch, Louis
Promoting slum clearance and clean water while preventing adulterated food addressed popular grievances while offering competent, uncontroversial government.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 12, 2026
Zhu’s partner, Wang, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud and distribution of adulterated and misbranded medical devices in connection with the case.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 7, 2026
"The big problem we face is adulterated products -- some people add sugar," she said.
From Barron's ● Feb. 10, 2026
And more recently in April, food and drugs control authorities in Gujarat seized more than 60,000kg of adulterated spices - chilli powder, turmeric and coriander power and pickle masala.
From BBC ● May 14, 2024
If the car hadn’t been adulterated for the mysterious and missing goats, it would hold thirty-two horses.
From "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen
"It's totally adulterating the competition," Courtois told a news conference.
From Barron's ● Oct. 21, 2025
From interviews, they also understood the motive: Brighter roots led to more profit, and adulterating with a consistently bright paint agent could disguise poorer-quality roots.
From Salon ● Aug. 2, 2023
The buying spree followed the melamine crisis when Chinese producers had been adulterating milk, baby formula and other foods with melamine, a chemical that is toxic in large quantities, to increase their apparent protein content.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 23, 2020
For example, a decade after Chinese milk producers were revealed to be adulterating infant formula, Chinese parents still shun the country’s dairy industry and distrust of food producers remains almost universal.
From The Verge ● Jul. 10, 2019
The chief use, however, of potato-farina as an edible starch is for adulterating other and more costly preparations.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Slice 6 "Armour Plates" to "Arundel, Earls of" by Various
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.
