Contamination

How to spell contamination

13 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce contamination

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does contamination mean?

1. nounThe presence of harmful or unwanted substances, organisms, or impurities that make something impure or unsafe.

Contamination in a sentence

• The lab tested the water supply for any sign of contamination.

• Strict hygiene rules reduce the risk of contamination in the kitchen.

Where does contamination come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin verb contaminare, which meant 'to defile' or 'to render impure by mixing in'. That verb was built on con-, meaning 'together' or 'with', joined to a root linked to tangere, 'to touch', so the original literal sense was something close to 'to bring into contact and thereby spoil'. The Latin noun contaminatio described this act of polluting or mingling, and English took the idea in through French and Latin scholarly use in the early 1600s. Over time the meaning narrowed from a general staining or moral defilement toward the modern scientific senses of disease, dirt, and chemical impurity. The same tangere root touches a surprising family of English words, including 'contact', 'tangent', and 'intact', and remembering the hidden 'touch' inside it can fix the single 'm' and the 'tamin' spelling in mind.

How the word is built

• con- (together, with)
• tamin- (from Latin tangere, to touch)
• -ation (noun of action)