Standard Lemma guide

vitiation

noun · 4 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

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1

noun

Meaning 1

A reduction in the value, or an impairment in the quality of something.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: countable, uncountable

Examples

  • 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 Honble 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.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

2

noun

Meaning 2

Moral corruption.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: countable, uncountable

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: degeneracy, malignity, turpitude, baseness, corruption, defilement, degradation, depravation, depravedness, depravity, impurity, iniquity, lewdity, misdoing, misguilt, obliquity, peccability, perversion, pollution, pravity, sin, sinfulness, vitiation, wickedness, wrongdoing

Antonyms: none provided

3

noun

Meaning 3

An abolition or abrogation.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: countable, uncountable

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: annulment, devalidation, revocation, abolition, abrogation, cancellation, deauthentication, invalidation, nullification, renunciation, termination, vitiation

Antonyms: none provided

4

noun

Meaning 4

nullification by the destruction of the legal force; rendering null

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

Examples

  • the vitiation of the contract

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

Broader terms: nullification, override

History

Etymology

From Latin vitiare (“to spoil, damage”).