uncontaminated
Britishadjective
Explanation
Something that's uncontaminated is clean and pure — it hasn't been exposed to anything dirty or poisonous. Not everyone is lucky enough to have uncontaminated water to drink. Whether your drinking water comes from a city system or a well, it gets tested periodically to make sure it's uncontaminated and safe for drinking. If something is polluted or poisoned, like when there's too much lead in the soil or radiation in the atmosphere, it's contaminated. Add the prefix un-, "not," and you get uncontaminated. You can also use this adjective figuratively to mean "not corrupted," like your little brother who's uncontaminated by the internet.
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.
By using composite samples, high levels of contamination from one part of the property can become diluted by relatively uncontaminated sections elsewhere on the property.
From Los Angeles Times • May 4, 2025
The trained panel then assessed the aroma of uncontaminated wine as a control and samples of the contaminated wine that had been stored for seven days to 42 days.
From Science Daily • Apr. 17, 2024
It also answers a question that has stumped researchers and hunters: Why is the radiation in the wild boar population relatively high, when most other wildlife are uncontaminated, many generations after the accident?
From New York Times • Sep. 2, 2023
While modern sanitation allows humans to consume clean produce uncontaminated by dirt or feces, we can easily and cheaply obtain oral B12 supplements.
From Scientific American • Jul. 14, 2023
The scientists on the Collection Committee set out to create the Fort Knox of pure, uncontaminated cell culture.
From "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot
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.
