as in cleaning
to remove dirty or dangerous substances (such as radioactive material) from (a person, thing, place, etc.)
Special workers were called in to decontaminate the area after the oil spill.
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Recent Examples of decontaminating
Among our responsibilities was decontaminating people and equipment after exposure to hazardous materials.
—
Jennifer N. Pritzker,
Chicago Tribune,
22 Mar. 2026
Radiation protection personnel allegedly responded to the incident quickly, pulling the worker from the water and decontaminating him safely.
—
Prabhat Ranjan Mishra,
Interesting Engineering,
24 Oct. 2025
Jennifer N. Pritzker,
Chicago Tribune,
22 Mar. 2026
Radiation protection personnel allegedly responded to the incident quickly, pulling the worker from the water and decontaminating him safely.
—
Prabhat Ranjan Mishra,
Interesting Engineering,
24 Oct. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for decontaminating
Verb
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Dilute your cleaning solutions and don't forget to rinse and dry when you're finished.
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Scott Schrader is the chief marketing manager at the home-cleaning company CottageCare in Colorado.
Verb
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Here was a symbolic way of purging Hindu society of untouchability.
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The data shows that black and brown people spend much longer time, in longer lines, purging people, people literally showing up and not knowing that their names have been purged from the rolls.
Verb
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African and Caribbean leaders are demanding financial compensation, debt cancellation and formal apologies from countries that benefited from the transatlantic slave trade after adopting a sweeping reparations plan at a conference in Ghana.
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Instead of a handheld probe sweeping across your skin, a ring of transducers surrounds the body underwater and fires sound waves from every angle at once, reconstructing a full 3D volume from the echoes.
Cite this Entry
“Decontaminating.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/decontaminating. Accessed 27 Jun. 2026.
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