maculate
Americanadjective
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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"
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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.
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
Most maculate thoughts, master, are masked under such colours.
From Love's Labour's Lost by William Shakespeare
In the maculate atmosphere of flat wine and stale cologne he had a sharp recurrence of the scent of pines, lifting warmly in sunny space.
From The Three Black Pennys A Novel by Joseph Hergesheimer
Because the matter been so vile, It may nocht have ane ornate style; Wherefore I pray your Excellence To hear me with great patience: Of stinking weedis maculate No man nay mak ane rose-chaplet.
From English Satires by William Henry Oliphant Smeaton
That done, he returned, happily unrecognized, rumpled & maculated, to the Morrow dinner.
From Time Magazine Archive
A shell had maculated the wall on each side and above the statue, but the little niche and canopy were quite untouched.
From A Volunteer Poilu by Henry Beston
Blake saw the crimson that dripped on her matting slippers and maculated the cream white of the mandarin coat.
From Never-Fail Blake by Arthur Stringer
This was a particularly repulsive specimen of its breed; grimy with hardened dust and gummed oil, maculated with yellow-surface-rust, the brasswork green with corrosion.
From Murder in the Gunroom by H. Beam Piper
Sidewalks began to be maculated with spreading areas of dryness, but the roadway was still wet and shining, the wide black mirror of a myriad lights.
From The False Faces Further Adventures from the History of the Lone Wolf by Louis Joseph Vance
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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.
