adulterated
English
Etymology
The adjectival sense's relation to adultery is the common theme that corruption or pollution has occurred; more at adulterate. By surface analysis, adulterate + -ed.
Adjective
adulterated (not comparable)
- Intentionally tainted with impurities (usually as motivated by cheapening the production of a food product or enhancing the psychotropic effects of a street drug).
- Near-synonyms: laced, tainted, contaminated
- The problem of adulterated milk has periodically reemerged as a public health menace, from New York in the 1850s to China in 2008.
- Heroin is often adulterated with fentanyl.
- 2011 December 18, Jay Rayner, “Restaurant review: Aurelia”, in The Observer[1], →ISSN, archived from the original on 15 August 2022:
- A thin, crunchy lemon and thyme rosti was essentially the pimped-up aesthetic of the Kettle chip. That's OK. I like Kettle chips.
Related terms
Translations
Translations
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Verb
adulterated
- simple past and past participle of adulterate