contamination
- 01 B2 Upper Intermediate
the state of being dirty or dangerous because of chemicals, bacteria, or other harmful things.
the presence of an unwanted constituent or impurity in a material, physical body, or natural environment.
Simple“The city warned residents about the contamination of the local water supply after the flood.”
In context“Environmental scientists detected significant chemical contamination in the soil samples collected near the decommissioned industrial site.”
Antonyms - 02 C1 Advanced
when two words with similar meanings influence each other and change their sounds or forms.
the process by which the form of one word is altered through the influence of another related word.
Simple“The word 'female' changed its spelling because of contamination from the word 'male'.”
In context“Historical linguists often cite contamination as the primary driver for irregular morphological changes in closely related lexical sets.”
Synonyms - 03 C2 Proficiency
when a person copying an old book mixes parts from different versions together.
the intermingling of readings from multiple manuscript sources by a copyist, resulting in a hybrid text.
Simple“The ancient poem exists in several versions due to the contamination of different manuscripts.”
In context“The editor faced the difficult task of identifying textual contamination where the scribe had clearly consulted two distinct traditions simultaneously.”
Synonyms
“Next, the team is testing environmental water samples collected in Michigan to determine whether the approach can detect PFAS contamination outside the laboratory.”
“Three key Pfas chemicals were banned in Australia last year due to long-running concerns about environmental contamination and health risks.”
From Latin contāminātiōnem.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.