contamination
Americannoun
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contaminations
plural
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the act of contaminating, or of making something impure or unsuitable by contact with something unclean, bad, etc.
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the act of contaminating, or of rendering something harmful or unusable by the addition of radioactive material.
the contamination of food following a nuclear attack.
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the state of being contaminated.
The manufacturer recalled the product because of possible salmonella contamination.
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Rare. something that contaminates a place or substance, as by making it impure, unsuitable, harmful, or unusable; a contaminant.
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Linguistics.
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an alternation in a linguistic form due to the influence of a related form, as the replacement in English of earlier femelle with female through the influence of male.
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the process of forming blends.
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noun
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the act or process of contaminating or the state of being contaminated
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something that contaminates
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linguistics the process by which one word or phrase is altered because of mistaken associations with another word or phrase; for example, the substitution of irregardless for regardless by association with such words as irrespective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of contamination
1375–1425; late Middle English contaminacioun < Late Latin contāminātiōn- (stem of contāminātiō ), equivalent to contāmināt ( us ) ( see contaminate) + -iōn- -ion
Explanation
Contamination is the unwanted pollution of something by another substance. When a nuclear power plant leaks radiation into the atmosphere, for example, it causes a contamination of the surrounding area. Contamination can also be used to refer to abstract ideas and concepts rather than to just physical things. The French complain that the increasing adoption of English words is a contamination of their linguistic heritage, and many parents today think rap music is a contamination of the public culture.
Vocabulary lists containing contamination
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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:
In explaining the gap, Yi describes what he calls a contamination cycle: Census figures were adjusted upward using education and household registration data that had themselves been exaggerated.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 13, 2026
This suggests that seemingly minor contamination could have major consequences for the feasibility of certain fusion reactor designs.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 10, 2026
Mercury contamination, toxic algal blooms and invasive fishes have threatened a rare and revered local fish.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 29, 2026
The EA said the pollution was a category three pollution incident because impacts were limited to the area where contamination enters the watercourse.
From BBC ● Sep. 28, 2026
The only possible means of contamination seemed to be by means of groundwater.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
Nephew said if time was short, the U.S. could also seek to dilute the material on-site by mixing it with natural uranium or destroy it, although that could cause chemical contaminations in the area.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 15, 2026
The potential applications could include antimicrobial spray or coating to control foodborne pathogen contaminations at both pre-harvest and post-harvest stages, the researchers said.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 29, 2024
Morocco on Saturday went so far as to ban all arrivals from China, regardless of nationality, “to avoid a new wave of contaminations in Morocco and all its consequences.”
From Washington Post ● Jan. 4, 2023
Across the UK new cases of HIV and hepatitis continued to be diagnosed decades after the first contaminations, resulting in many early deaths.
From BBC ● Oct. 22, 2022
Our only hope lies in rousing, in our own community, a soul of goodness, a wise aspiration, that shall give us strength to assimilate this unwholesome food to better substance, or cast off its contaminations.
From Life Without and Life Within or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and poems. by Margaret Fuller
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
