attaint
Americanverb (used with object)
-
Law. to condemn by a sentence or a bill or act of attainder.
-
to disgrace.
-
Archaic. to accuse.
-
Obsolete. to prove the guilt of.
noun
verb
-
to pass judgment of death or outlawry upon (a person); condemn by bill of attainder
-
to dishonour or disgrace
-
to accuse or prove to be guilty
-
(of sickness) to affect or strike (somebody)
noun
-
a less common word for attainder
-
a dishonour; taint
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of attaint
1250–1300; Middle English ataynte, derivative of ataynt convicted < Anglo-French, Old French, past participle of ataindre to convict, attain
Vocabulary lists containing attaint
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.
Nor if happily boys declare Thy dominion attaint, refuse, 130 Youth, the nuts to be flinging.
From The Poems and Fragments of Catullus by Robinson Ellis
For in an attaint under Henry the Sixt, one of the Jury challenged himselfe because his ancestors had been Baronets and Seigneurs des Parlements.
From Notes and Queries, Vol. IV, Number 90, July 19, 1851 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Geneologists, etc. by Various
Unneth thy flocks may feed to see thee faint, Thou lost, they lean, and both with woe attaint.
From Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles Phillis - Licia by Martha Foote Crow
Even to have kicked an outsider might have been held to attaint the foot concerned in that operation; so that, perhaps, it would have required an act of parliament to restore its purity of blood.
From Miscellaneous Essays by Thomas De Quincey
Bossuet also observes, that at the moment in which Robert was struck with these terrible anathemas, nobody thought or asserted that this excommunication could carry the least attaint to the sovereign authority of this monarch.
From The Power Of The Popes by Pierre Claude Fran?ois Daunou
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions 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.
