different between vitiation vs vitiate

English

Alternative forms

• viciation

Etymology

Latin vitiare (“to spoil, damage”)

Noun

vitiation (countable and uncountable, plural vitiations)

1. a reduction in the value, or an impairment in the quality of something
   • 1810, George Wilson, M.D., F.R.D.E. Ch. II. General Sketch of Cavendish's Scientific Researches and Discoveries, in The Life of the Hon^ble Henry Cavendish, p. 39.

     […] air was universally reputed to be a simple or elementary body. It was liable, according to the phlogistians, to vitiation, by the addition to it of phlogiston […] being more or less phlogisticated, according to the degree of its power to support respiration and combustion.

   • Lincoln once reprimanded a young army officer for indulging in a violent controversy with an associate. "No man who is resolved to make the most of himself," said Lincoln, "can spare time for personal contention. Still less can he afford to take the consequences, including the vitiation of his temper and the loss of self-control.

2. moral corruption
3. an abolition or abrogation

English

Alternative forms

• viciate

Etymology

From viti?tus, the perfect passive participle of Latin viti? (“damage, spoil”), from vitium (“vice”).

Pronunciation

• (UK, General American) IPA^(key): /?v??.i.e?t/
• (US)

Verb

vitiate (third-person singular simple present vitiates, present participle vitiating, simple past and past participle vitiated)

1. (transitive) to spoil, make faulty; to reduce the value, quality, or effectiveness of something
   • 1838, Ralph Waldo Emerson, "An Address delivered before the Senior Class in Divinity College, Cambridge, Sunday evening, 15 July, 1838":

     The least admixture of a lie, -- for example, the taint of vanity, the least attempt to make a good impression, a favorable appearance, -- will instantly vitiate the effect.

   • 2007, David Roodman, "A Short Note on the Theme of Too Many Instruments", Center for Global Development Working Paper 125 (August 2007), p. 9

     Unfortunately, as Anderson and Sørenson (1996) and Bowsher (2002) document, instrument proliferation can vitiate the test.

2. (transitive) to debase or morally corrupt
3. (transitive, archaic) to violate, to rape
4. (transitive) to make something ineffective, to invalidate

Related terms

• See vice

Translations

References

Further reading

• vitiate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• vitiate in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• vitiate at OneLook Dictionary Search

Latin

Verb

viti?te

1. second-person plural present active imperative of viti?