vitiate
[vish-ee-eyt]
- to impair the quality of; make faulty; spoil.
- to impair or weaken the effectiveness of.
- to debase; corrupt; pervert.
- to make legally defective or invalid; invalidate: to vitiate a claim.
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Origin of vitiate
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Related Words
negatequashannihilatesullydefilepervertdebaseinvalidatedenyannulrevokeundoabolishnullifyabateabrogaterecantunderminedeleteharmExamples from the Web for vitiate
Contemporary Examples
The result will be provisions that are watered down or loopholes that vitiate key provisions altogether.
Historical Examples
These notions are at least possible, and would they not vitiate your argument?
More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume IICharles Darwin
Minshew interprets the verb deboshe, "to corrupt, make lewde, vitiate."
MicrocosmographyJohn Earle
Small-pox does not vitiate the blood of a people; this disease does.
Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark CornersB.G. Jefferis
Above all, do not, by dint of judging, vitiate your faculty of tasting.
This, however, did not vitiate the titles of these companies to said lands.
vitiate
- to make faulty or imperfect
- to debase, pervert, or corrupt
- to destroy the force or legal effect of (a deed, etc)to vitiate a contract
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Word Origin
C16: from Latin vitiāre to injure, from vitium a fault
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for vitiate
v.
1530s, from Latin vitiatus, past participle of vitiare "to make faulty, injure, spoil, corrupt," from vitium "fault, defect, blemish, crime, vice" (see vice (n.1)). Related: Vitiated; vitiating.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper