Etymologically
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contamination

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 24 October 2026 at 18:41. This address is a permanent link to this version.
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Pronunciation

  • UK: /kənˌtæm.ɪˈneɪ.ʃən/, /kənˌtæm.əˈneɪ.ʃən/[1]
  • US: /kənˌtæm.əˈneɪ.ʃən/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English contaminacioun,[2][3][4] borrowed from Latin contāminātiō (“a polluting, defilement”),[3][5][6][7] a noun of action from contāminō (“to defile, corrupt; to spoil by mixing”), originally "to bring into contact".[3][5][6] Etymonline and the MED call the source Medieval Latin, Dictionary.com and Merriam-Webster Late Latin,[3][2][4][7] and the OED notes that the word was also used in French in the 16th century.[5] The verb is based on contāmen (“contact; pollution”), from com- (“with, together”) and the base of tangō (“to touch”), from Proto-Indo-European *tag- (“to touch, handle”).[3][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Infection: the MED has a single quotation, from a Middle English translation of Guy de Chauliac's surgery of about 1425, which glosses the word as "defouling or infecting".[2] Etymonline dates it to the early 15th century, Merriam-Webster to the 15th century and Dictionary.com to 1375–1425,[3][7][4] while the OED, in an entry not fully revised since 1893, has no example before 1599.[5]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) defined it simply as "pollution; defilement".[9] The figurative sense, moral or spiritual defilement, is recorded from 1620, in Bishop Hall.[5][3] From 1806 the word also meant the thing that contaminates, an impurity.[5] Scholars gave it technical senses: the blending of several stories or plots into one (1877), in philology the blending of words or phrases of similar meaning into a new form (1888), and in textual criticism a manuscript that mixes readings from different lines of transmission (1913).[5][7] Merriam-Webster's Word Histories gives cannot help but, from cannot help and cannot but, and irregardless, from regardless and irrespective, as examples of the philological sense, and explains halyard, earlier halier, as altered by yard; when the influencing word is present as a segment like this, the process shades into folk etymology.[10] The use for harmful radioactivity dates from 1913 according to Etymonline, from the early 20th century in the Shorter Oxford.[3][11]

Timeline

  • c. 1425 – infection (Chauliac translation).[2]
  • 1599 – first example in the OED, defilement, pollution.[5]
  • 1620 – figurative, moral defilement.[5][3]
  • 1806 – something that contaminates; an impurity.[5]
  • 1877 – the blending of stories or plots.[5]
  • 1888 – philology, the blending of words or phrases.[5]
  • 1913 – textual criticism, mixed manuscript readings;[5] radioactivity.[3]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. The act or process of making something impure, or the state of being contaminated, as by pollution, infection or harmful radioactivity: Contamination of the well forced the village to boil its water.
  2. Something that contaminates; an impurity.
  3. (linguistics) The blending of two words or phrases with a similar meaning into a new form.
  4. (textual criticism) The mixing in one manuscript of readings from different groups of manuscripts.
  5. The blending of several stories or plots into one.

Word family

  • noncontamination
  • recontamination

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  7. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  10. ^ Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  11. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press