Vitiate

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Grammarist

Vitiate is a verb that has been in use since the mid-1500s, usually as a legal term. We will examine the meaning of the word vitiate, where it has come from and some examples of its use in sentences.

Vitiate means to debase the quality of something, to spoil something or make something faulty. When something is vitiated, it is not optimal, or it may be ruined. Vitiate is often used to describe compromising the legal validity of something. The word vitiate is a transitive verb, which is a verb that takes an object. Related words are vitiates, vitiated, vitiating, vitiation, vitiator. The word vitiate is derived from the Latin word vitiatus which means to injure, corrupt, debase or render faulty.

Examples

“The sole issue in this case is whether psychological harm said to have been caused by non-disclosure of HIV status vitiates consent to sexual activity.“ (The Globe and Mail)

“Too often, overwrought responses generate more of the very conditions they were intended to vitiate, creating cycles of chaos and, at the same time, ever-greater curbs on personal liberty.” (The Santa Barbara INdependent)

There is a whole body of activists on the left who also want to dismantle the FBI, to vitiate FISA, to denude the clothes of secrecy that have been used to justify national security misdeeds in the past. (The Week Magazine)

“Now that they (Canadian High Commission) has withdrawn the invitation, let us not press the issue,” said MEA Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar, making it amply clear that the Narendra Modi government was not willing to further vitiate the atmosphere ahead of Trudeau’s formal reception in Delhi on Friday. (The Mumbai Mirror)