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.
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
But they had no history to be written; and were too closely maculate to be portrayed;—white ground in most places altogether obscured.
From Ariadne Florentina Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving by John Ruskin
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
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
That done, he returned, happily unrecognized, rumpled & maculated, to the Morrow dinner.
From Time Magazine Archive
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 Louis Joseph Vance
The posters, maculated with filth, garnished like tapestry the sweep of the curbstone.
From The Secret Agent a Simple Tale by Joseph Conrad
A few drops of lukewarm water maculated the sidewalks with spots as big as dollars.
From Joan Thursday by Louis Joseph Vance
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.
