defiled

American  

[dih-fahyld] / dɪˈfaɪld /

adjective

1. made foul, dirty, or unclean; polluted or tainted.

   Morally, those with defiled consciences are flying blind.

2. made impure for ceremonial or ritual use; desecrated.

   To the left is a defiled shrine, with statues toppled and the symbol of an unrecognizable god destroyed.

3. sullied, as a person’s reputation.

   The lawyer added to his defiled reputation the other day by getting into a fistfight with a congressman.

4. Archaic. deprived of one’s virginity or having one’s chastity violated.

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verb

1. the simple past tense and past participle of defile.

Other Word Forms

• undefiled adjective

Etymology

Origin of defiled

defile ¹ ( def. ) + -ed ² ( def. )

Example Sentences

The writer Octavio Paz, the Mexican Nobel laureate, denounced Malinche as a kind of malevolent Eve whose submission to Cortés forever defiled Mexico’s mixed identity.

From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 25, 2026

Close friend Jo Peraldi finds it hard to believe that a day of high emotion surrounding the funeral of Orsoni's mother could have been defiled in such a way.

From BBC • Jan. 17, 2026

The Seleucids captured the holy Temple of Jerusalem and defiled it by erecting an altar to the Greek god Zeus inside.

From National Geographic • Dec. 7, 2023

The long-awaited move from the Environmental Protection Agency is meant to spark the cleanup of scores of sites defiled by industrial compounds and make the public more aware of their presence.

From Washington Post • Aug. 26, 2022

They seemed to realize the impossibility of touching tar without being defiled.

From "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass" by Frederick Douglass