contamination
Meaningthe act or result of touching together, tainting
Common meaning: the act of contaminating
Tap a word part to explore
- contaminatcontagionSkeat, Concise Etymological Dictionary (1911), p. 109 · scan
- ionnoun ending: act or result
Journey through time
- Latincontamen‘contagion’source
- Latincontaminare‘to defile’source
- Englishcontaminate‘make impure’
- Englishformed in English from contaminatecontamination‘the act of contaminating’ · today
Sources & notes
Inferred source: no dictionary we use has an entry for this exact word. Its history is worked out from closely related, listed words in the same family, and we are trusting that link, so bear that in mind. Inferred meaning: the act or result of touching together, tainting. It can be inferred from any of: contaminate.
Meaning: “Meaning” is the sense that emerges from the word’s roots; “Common meaning” is today’s everyday sense. Both written by us.
Pronunciation
- UK IPA: converted from the US form by rule (unchecked). Respelling: generated.
- No UK recording; the speaker uses your device’s en-GB voice.
- US IPA: CMUdict (BSD-2), converted to IPA by rule. Respelling: generated.
- No US recording; the speaker uses your device’s en-US voice.
Origin: Formed in English from contaminate + -ion (inferred: this exact word is not listed in our dictionaries).
Source words
- contamen Latin · source word “contagion”
Building blocks are an automatic split · open in app