maculate
Americanadjective
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spotted; stained.
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Archaic. defiled; impure.
verb (used with object)
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to mark with a spot or spots; stain.
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to sully or pollute.
verb
adjective
Etymology
Origin of maculate
1375–1425; late Middle English < Latin maculātus (past participle of maculāre to spot, stain). See macula, -ate 1
Explanation
If your little sister has a maculate appearance, she either needs a good wipe with a damp towel or you should take her to the doctor straight away. A fairly technical word little used now, maculate means "spotted" or "blotchy." There's another meaning for maculate, that of "having a blemished or impure moral character." Now your little sister doesn't have that, does she? You can also maculate something by either physically or metaphorically polluting it — like a river or a relationship.
Vocabulary lists containing maculate
100 SAT Words Beginning with "M"
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Love's Labour's Lost
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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.
But his limitations were a virtue because his target was so big -- and so maculate.
From Time Magazine Archive
Among the robin's maculate cousins, "the reddish tail is the hermit thrush's mark."
From Time Magazine Archive
To-morrow's papers would provide them with full accounts, the name of Susan Brundon among the maculate details....
From The Three Black Pennys A Novel by Hergesheimer, Joseph
From this black hour, this curse anointing hour, The currents of thy heart are all corrupt; The motions of thy thoughts are serpentine; And thy death-doing and bedabbled soul Is maculate with spots of Erebus.
From The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 by Various
Colette's foul walls and maculate table-linen, and even down to Colette's villainous casters, seemed like objects in a nightmare.
From Tales and Fantasies by Stevenson, Robert Louis
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.
