maculate
Americanadjective
-
spotted; stained.
-
Archaic. defiled; impure.
verb (used with object)
-
to mark with a spot or spots; stain.
-
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"
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
Love's Labour's Lost
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
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:
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
His wasted palms rested on knees that resembled bones draped with maculate clothing; his sere head fell forward.
From The Happy End by Hergesheimer, Joseph
And I was shown in that Vision the Calvaries of maternity common to all, whether the conception be immaculate, so-called if within the law, or maculate, so-called if without the law.
From A Cry in the Wilderness by Waller, Mary E. (Mary Ella)
Of this half-hundred a few are used in Shakespeare, but not at present, as verbs; thus, to maculate, to miracle, to mud, to mist, to mischief, to moral—also merchandized and musicked.
From Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVI., December, 1880. by Various
That done, he returned, happily unrecognized, rumpled & maculated, to the Morrow dinner.
From Time Magazine Archive
Back in the ages, dusty, maculated, Across the slate-hued fogs of time, Behold them!—oblongs of sliding water And cubed banks, Bridges and barges, blatantly, wonderfully, inconceivably angular, Calling, clamouring—canal, canal, canal!
From Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 25, 1914 by Various
It fell upon their faces, touching their whiteness with a ruddy tinge, accentuating the stains with which so many of them were freaked and maculated.
From The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce — Volume 2: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians by Bierce, Ambrose
Blake saw the crimson that dripped on her matting slippers and maculated the cream white of the mandarin coat.
From Never-Fail Blake by Stringer, Arthur
But the pace was now so fast and their elevation so great that the landscape swimming beneath his vision was no more than a brownish plain fugitively maculated with blots of contrasting colour.
From The Lone Wolf A Melodrama by Vance, Louis Joseph
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.
