Other Words from immaculate

immaculately adverb

immaculateness noun

… the immaculateness of scrubbed decks … — William Sansom

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…."

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 on the Web The pictures are immaculate — and, in Cleary’s case, characteristically odd: The late Ramon Osuna is shown lying in the grass, next to the tail end of a giant white rat. — Washington Post, 2 June 2021 She is created out of words and stories in a kind of immaculate conception. — Noah Berlatsky, Los Angeles Times, 25 May 2021 It's kept in immaculate condition with dedicated maintenance and operation teams assigned specifically for that purpose. — Ashleigh Stewart, CNN, 12 May 2021 Though all of the aforementioned outfits fully killed it, Madison's vibes, in particular, were immaculate. — Kelsey Stiegman, Seventeen, 17 May 2021 The 6-6 left-hander had an immaculate fifth inning, striking out Jalen Battles, Jacob Nesbit and Zack Gregory on nine pitches. — Tom Murphy, Arkansas Online, 8 May 2021 Nationals reliever Kyle Finnegan struck out the side on nine pitches in the sixth, the fifth immaculate inning in franchise history and first since Strasburg on July 3, 2019. — Ben Nuckols, ajc, 6 May 2021 Heier followed up with the bomb squad on March 18 and was told the cannonball weighed 12 pounds, is in immaculate condition and features an uncut time fuse. — Evan Frank, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 19 Mar. 2021 Ben Winston and his team did an immaculate job of planning it and running it. — Joe Lynch, Billboard, 19 Mar. 2021

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.