maculate

First attested during the last quarter of the 15th century, in Middle English; inherited from Middle English maculaten (“to spoil, polute”), borrowed from Latin maculātus, perfect passive participle of maculō (“to spot”), see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix).

• IPA^(key): /ˈmækjʊleɪt/ (verb):

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• IPA^(key): /ˈmækjʊlət/ (adjective):
• Rhymes: -ækjʊleɪt, -ækjʊlət

maculate (third-person singular simple present maculates, present participle maculating, simple past and past participle maculated)

1. To spot; to stain; to blur.
   • 1531, Thomas Elyot, The Boke Named the Governour […], London: […] Tho[mas] Bertheleti, →OCLC:

     they wolde nat maculate the honour of their people with suche a reproche

   • 1918, Louis Joseph Vance, “Chapter 21”, in The False Faces:

     There was a fresh smell in the air. Sidewalks began to be maculated with spreading areas of dryness

2. (obsolete) past participle of maculate
   • c. 1550, The Complaynt of Scotland:

     That the honour of verteous gentil men, be nocht maculat vitht the vice ande inciuilite of vicius pretendit gentil men.

maculate (comparative more maculate, superlative most maculate) (now rare, poetic)

1. Marked with spots or maculae; blotched.
2. Defiled, impure.
   • 1998 May 25, The New Republic:

     [Les Misérables is] about the struggle of a mistreated man as he rises to the top, along with a mortal conflict between this maculate virtuous man and an immaculate pursuing demon.

• “maculate”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

maculate

1. feminine plural of maculato

• calumate, malcaute

maculāte

1. vocative masculine singular of maculātus

maculate

1. second-person singular voseo imperative of macular combined with te