adulterated
adjective
Also a form of adulterate
- adjective Intentionally tainted with impurities (usually as motivated by cheapening the production of a food product or enhancing the psychotropic effects of a street drug). “The problem of adulterated milk has periodically reemerged as a public health menace, from New York in the 1850s to China in 2008.”
Synonyms
laced tainted contaminated common corrupted mixed polluted sophisticated adulterate debased
Etymology
The adjectival sense's relation to adultery is the common theme that corruption or pollution has occurred; more at adulterate. By surface analysis, adulterate + -ed.
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 — from the Wiktionary entry “adulterated”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details