adulterate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin adulterātus (“mixed, adulterated”), the past participle of adulterō (“to defile, commit adultery with, mix with another substance”);^{[2][3][4][5][6]} the verb is from the stem adulterāt-.^[2][7] Barnhart and Etymonline think the verb may instead be a back-formation from adulteration, recorded from 1505.^[8][9] The Latin verb is formed from ad- (“to”) and a verb derived from alter (“other, different”),^{[3][10][4][11][12]} Dictionary.com considers this link only a possibility,^[5] and Skeat derived the verb from adulter (“adulterer, debaser of money”).^[13] The word is unrelated to adult.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The adjective comes first, meaning debased or made impure by mixture: before 1509, in John Colet's statutes for Saint Paul's School.^[2][6][14] The verb, to corrupt or debase, follows in about 1526, in a sermon of John Fisher.^[2][3] Barnhart and Etymonline date it to 1531 and the 1530s.^[8][9] An earlier verb adulter, with the same meaning, dates from the late 14th century.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories reasons that the Latin verb must first have meant "to alter", and that a change from "to change" to "to change for the worse" is a common one.^[10] Both Latin lines, pollution by mixture and sexual defilement, came into English together.^[2][3] The adjective meant "of or given to adultery" from 1556,^[2] and the verb "to defile by adultery" from about 1550 and "to commit adultery" from 1613.^[2] Shakespeare's Constance says of Fortune in King John that she “adulterates hourly with thine uncle John”,^[15][10] and Johnson (1755) gives that sense first, followed by corrupting with a foreign mixture.^[15] The sexual senses have faded, and the word is now used mainly of debasing a substance by adding something inferior, a use recorded since 1531 in Elyot's The Governour.^[2][10]

Timeline

• before 1509 – adjective, debased or made impure by mixture.^[2]
• c. 1526 – to make impure, to corrupt.^[2]
• 1531 – to make a substance poorer by adding another one.^[2][8]
• c. 1550 – to defile by adultery, to commit adultery with (now archaic).^[2]
• 1556 – adjective, of or resulting from adultery.^[2]
• 1613 – intransitive, to commit adultery (now rare).^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make something impure or poorer in quality by adding a foreign or inferior substance: The dealer adulterated the saffron with dyed thread.^[12][3][2]
2. More generally, to corrupt or debase.^[2][6][3]
3. (archaic) To defile by adultery; to commit adultery.^[2][6][15]

Adjective

1. Made impure by mixture; spurious.^{[12][3][2][6]}
2. (archaic) Of, given to or tainted by adultery.^{[3][2][6][15]}

Word family

• adulteration
• adulterator
• unadulterate
• unadulterated

Related words

• adulterant
• adulterer
• adulteress
• adulterine
• adulterous
• adultery
• alter

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ a b c d Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.