immaculate

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adjective im·mac·u·late \ i-ˈma-kyə-lət \

Definition of immaculate

1 :having no stain or blemish :pure

an immaculate heart

2 :having or containing no flaw or error

an immaculate record of service

in immaculate detail

3 a :spotlessly clean

an immaculate kitchen

immaculate uniforms

b :having no colored spots or marks —used especially in botany and zoology

petals immaculate

—

immaculately

adverb

See immaculate defined for English-language learners

See immaculate defined for kids

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Examples of immaculate in a Sentence

… they seemed as remote from metaphysics as their lunch bags and knapsacks. Yet weren't they all heading for those immaculate country snowfields to talk of God? —Cynthia Ozick, Atlantic, May 1997
… and added to this was the fact that this Soviet Army Colonel had a service record that was as immaculate as a field of freshly fallen snow … —Tom Clancy, The Cardinal of the Kremlin, (1988) 1989
I was expecting some giant to emerge, but in came a tiny, immaculate, white-haired man. —Anna Russell, I'm Not Making This Up, You Know, 1985
She had an immaculate record of service.
somehow managed to keep the white carpet immaculate

Recent Examples of immaculate from the Web

With an abundance of think pieces surrounding the Kim/Kanye fiasco, at this point, the world caught on to Swift's immaculate image control.

— rachel nussbaum, Glamour, "Taylor Swift's New Album Signals a Dark, Powerful Style She's Never Shown Before," 24 Aug. 2017
When play resumed, at 8:01 p.m., Yankees right-hander Dellin Betances threw an immaculate inning, striking out the Tigers on nine pitches in the eighth.

— anthony fenech, Detroit Free Press, "Jordan Zimmermann 'outstanding' to help Tigers slog past Yankees, 2-0," 3 Aug. 2017
The crew maintains the immaculate grounds throughout the week.

— branson wright, cleveland.com, "WGC-Bridgestone Invitational 2017: Firestone course maintenance vital to tournament success (photos, video)," 3 Aug. 2017
Pity Marin Cilic who played six generally immaculate matches here and then fell apart in the final.

— jon wertheim, SI.com, "50 parting thoughts from Wimbledon 2017," 15 July 2017
Under a cloudless Portuguese blue sky on immaculate green fields, the pressure is on to produce the next multimillion-euro export.

— tariq panja, Bloomberg.com, "Soccer Factory That Made Ronaldo Tries to Find Another Ronaldo," 30 June 2017
Boys and girls are responsible for keeping the bedrooms neat – and other than a handful of cuddly toys peppered across the bunk beds, the rooms are immaculate.

— ryan lenora brown, The Christian Science Monitor, "In South Sudan, equipping young generation for young country's future," 26 June 2017
Wearing immaculate suits, shoes and hats in varying shades of purple, the men and women in the parade strutted for several blocks with stops along the way at neighborhood bars and lounges.

— chris granger, NOLA.com, "New Orleans' second-line season closes with Uptown Swingers: See photos," 25 June 2017
Ty Dolla $ign sports a similar aura of rock star with a black fedora, long dreads, and immaculate style.

— ashley lyle, Billboard, "Here's What You Missed at Future's Nobody's Safe Tour," 17 June 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'immaculate.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Did You Know?

The opposite of immaculate is maculate, which means "marked with spots" or "impure." The Latin word maculatus, the past participle of a verb meaning "to stain," is the source of both words and can be traced back to macula, a word that scientists still use for spots on the skin, on the wings of insects, and on the surface of celestial objects. Maculate has not marked as many pages as immaculate, but it has appeared occasionally (one might say "spottily"), especially as an antithesis to immaculate. We find the pair, for example, in an article by Peter Schjeldahl in an April 2004 issue of The New Yorker: "Rob's apartment, with its immaculate ranks of album spines and its all too maculate strewing of everything else…."