Library / English Dictionary

TAINT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

The state of being contaminated

Synonyms:

contamination; taint

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Hypernyms ("taint" is a kind of...):

impureness; impurity (the condition of being impure)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "taint"):

dust contamination (state of being contaminated with dust)

Derivation:

taint (contaminate with a disease or microorganism)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Contaminate with a disease or microorganism

Synonyms:

infect; taint

Classified under:

Verbs of grooming, dressing and bodily care

Hypernyms (to "taint" is one way to...):

contaminate; foul; pollute (make impure)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "taint"):

superinfect (infect (an infected cell) further or infect a cell already containing similar organisms)

smut (affect with smut or mildew, as of a crop such as corn)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody

Derivation:

taint (the state of being contaminated)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Place under suspicion or cast doubt upon

Example:

sully someone's reputation

Synonyms:

cloud; corrupt; defile; sully; taint

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "taint" is one way to...):

deflower; impair; mar; spoil; vitiate (make imperfect)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s somebody
Something ----s something

Credits

 Context examples: 

And when I came to you, that night, to lay down all my load of shame and grief, and knew that I had to tell that, underneath your roof, one of my own kindred, to whom you had been a benefactor, for the love of me, had spoken to me words that should have found no utterance, even if I had been the weak and mercenary wretch he thought me—my mind revolted from the taint the very tale conveyed.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Heart-weary and soul-withered, you come home after years of voluntary banishment: you make a new acquaintance—how or where no matter: you find in this stranger much of the good and bright qualities which you have sought for twenty years, and never before encountered; and they are all fresh, healthy, without soil and without taint.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

How sweet it was to see the clouds race by, and the passing gleams of the moonlight between the scudding clouds crossing and passing—like the gladness and sorrow of a man's life; how sweet it was to breathe the fresh air, that had no taint of death and decay; how humanising to see the red lighting of the sky beyond the hill, and to hear far away the muffled roar that marks the life of a great city.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

I lingered at the gates; I lingered on the lawn; I paced backwards and forwards on the pavement; the shutters of the glass door were closed; I could not see into the interior; and both my eyes and spirit seemed drawn from the gloomy house—from the grey-hollow filled with rayless cells, as it appeared to me—to that sky expanded before me,—a blue sea absolved from taint of cloud; the moon ascending it in solemn march; her orb seeming to look up as she left the hill-tops, from behind which she had come, far and farther below her, and aspired to the zenith, midnight dark in its fathomless depth and measureless distance; and for those trembling stars that followed her course; they made my heart tremble, my veins glow when I viewed them.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)