Tainted

How to spell tainted

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce tainted

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does tainted mean?

1. adjectiveContaminated, spoiled, or corrupted by an undesirable or harmful element.

Tainted in a sentence

• The recall warned that the tainted batch of meat could cause illness.

• His reputation was permanently tainted by the fraud allegations.

Where does tainted come from?

Language of origin: French

The word descends from the verb 'taint', which English absorbed in two overlapping streams during the Middle Ages. One strand comes from Old French 'teint', the past participle of 'teindre' meaning 'to dye' or 'to colour', which itself traces to the Latin 'tingere', 'to wet, soak, or stain with colour'. A second strand comes from the legal verb 'attaint', from Latin 'attingere' meaning 'to touch upon' and later 'to convict', which carried the idea of a person being marked or stained by a crime. These senses of 'colouring' and 'staining' blended in English so that to taint something was to mark it with corruption or contamination. By the time '-ed' was added to give 'tainted', the word firmly meant spoiled, contaminated, or morally stained, and the spelling preserves the 'ai' from the Old French dye word rather than any sound you can clearly hear today.

How the word is built

• taint (to stain or contaminate)
• -ed (past participle / adjective suffix)