From the fun and familiar to the strange and obscure, learn something new every day with Merriam-Webster.
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 10, 2009 is:
vitiate \VISH-ee-ayt\ verb
1 : to make faulty or defective : impair
2 : to debase in moral or aesthetic status
3 : to make ineffective
Examples:
Some feared that the superintendent’s decision to reinstate the students would vitiate the authority of the principal who suspended them in the first place.
Did you know?
Here's one for word puzzle lovers -- and anyone else allured by alliteration. The sentence "Vivian vituperated the vicious villain for valuing vice over virtue" contains three words that derive from the same Latin source as "vitiate." Can you identify all three? If you picked "vituperate" (a verb meaning "to scold"), "vicious," and "vice," your puzzle prowess is beyond reproach. Like "vitiate," all three descend from the Latin noun "vitium," meaning "fault" or "vice."
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