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Glite Dictionary
🧪 To make impure 🧪 Made impure
to adulterate

to adulterate

5 8.2
To make food or drink impure by adding cheaper ingredients
  • verb
  • /əˈdʌltəˌreɪt/
  • Specialized
translation icon : adulterar
  • For example, during the debate about possible adulteration of low- and ultralow-sulfur diesel, CSE deliberately adulterated diesel and sent the sample to labs that were tasked with monitoring fuel quality.
  • adulterated food
  • adulterated products
  • adulterated fertilizer

Examples

  • Unscrupulous food processors adulterated food with valueless non-food substances or dangerous poisons.

    Academic text (2014)

  • Many companies have been fined for attempting to adulterate their olive oil with cheaper oils.

  • I'm certain that this urine has been adulterated.

    Fiction book (2000)

  • The Russian railroad authorities' solution to this problem was to adulterate the lard with soot.

    Academic text (1998)

  • AAPFCO officials are authorized under the Uniform State Fertilizer Bill to stop the sale of an adulterated fertilizer product.

    Academic text (2000)

  • Campbell wrote that the meat was overpriced and low-quality, the bread was probably adulterated, and all was cooked and served in the quickest, most careless way possible.

    Academic text (2014)

  • If you adulterate the paint with too much water, it will lose its color intensity.

  • It's important to read labels carefully to avoid products that have been adulterated with harmful additives.

Synonyms

to contaminate
vsto adulterate
248 4.9

To make things like water or soil unsafe by adding harmful substances

means weakening or impurity without stressing danger
to dilute
vsto adulterate
26 4.9

To make a product worse by adding cheaper ingredients

focuses on impurity from added foreign inferior substances
to dirty
vsto adulterate
14 1.0

To make something unclean or covered with dirt

means weakening purity by adding inferior substances not mere dirt
to debase
vsto adulterate
7 6.9

To make something worth less by adding cheaper material

is about making physical mixtures impure rather than general status loss
adulterating
vsto adulterate
  • Specialized
7.4

Making something impure by adding cheaper or harmful substances

is the same action but expressed as the simple verb
contaminating
vsto adulterate
4.9

Causing something to become dirty or harmful by adding unwanted materials

implies weakening by added inferior substances not necessarily harm

Antonyms

to refine
  • Specialized
41 3.9

Remove unwanted parts from a material to make it pure

to purify
30 4.6

To remove dirt and bad chemicals from water or air to make them clean

How Impure

to poison
262 3.3
to adulterate
  • Specialized
5 8.2
to contaminate
248 4.9
dilute
1 4.2
to add
∞ 1.0

Surface Forms

adulterate infinitive
adulterated past
adulterated past participle
adulterating present participle
adulterates third person singular

Morphology

adulterate = adulter + ate

The segment 'adulter-' is a Latin combining form not recognizable as a standalone English base, so learners cannot reliably derive the meaning from familiar English morphemes.

Etymology

Adulterate comes from Latin parts ad- and alter, where alter means 'other' and is the same root as the English word alter. So to adulterate food or drink is to add something 'other' to it and make it 'impure' or weaker.