vitiate
Americanverb (used with object)
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to impair the quality of; make faulty; spoil.
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to impair or weaken the effectiveness of.
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to make legally defective or invalid; invalidate.
to vitiate a claim.
verb
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to make faulty or imperfect
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to debase, pervert, or corrupt
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to destroy the force or legal effect of (a deed, etc)
to vitiate a contract
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of vitiate
First recorded in 1525–35; from Latin vitiātus, past participle of vitiāre “to spoil, impair,” derivative of vitium “blemish, defect, fault” + -ātus; see vice 1, -ate 1
Explanation
As some sneaky five-year-olds know, crossing one’s fingers while making a promise is an effective way to vitiate, or destroy the validity of, an agreement. Vitiate is often used when a legal agreement is made invalid, but it can also refer to the debasement or corruption of something or someone. If a malicious five-year-old on the playground teaches the other children to lie with their fingers crossed, she would be responsible for vitiating the playground community. The first syllable of this word is pronounced "vish," like the first syllable in vicious.
Vocabulary lists containing vitiate
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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100 SAT Words Beginning with "V"
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On the Origin of Species
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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.
Giving that up, Professor Bale said, would vitiate the ideological rationale of her government and potentially turn her into a lame-duck leader until the next election, which she will have to call by early 2025.
From New York Times • Sep. 30, 2022
The rule recognized that new technologies cannot be employed to vitiate the right to be secure promised by the Fourth Amendment.
From Slate • Jul. 22, 2021
In the case of McNally, who presented as a teenage boy throughout a relationship with a teenage girl, the Court of Appeal determined that "deception as to gender can vitiate consent".
From BBC • Sep. 25, 2019
These “young men and mayds” were convicted by the magistrate of “meeting at unseasonable times, and of night walking, and companying together contrary to civility and good nurture, tending to vitiate one another.”
From The New Yorker • Oct. 4, 2018
Unhappily it came to an end through a-33- prosecution under the Truck Act, that blot upon the Statute Book, designed, it would appear, even deliberately to vitiate man's benevolent control of his fellow man.
From Marriage by Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
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.
