tainting

verb

present participle of taint
1
as in marring
to affect slightly with something morally bad or undesirable criticism of her sister's singing that was tainted by envy a tendency toward conceitedness taints the athlete's status as a role model

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in polluting
to make unfit for use by the addition of something harmful or undesirable smog has long tainted the air of the city, making it difficult to breathe

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of tainting Several homeowners near Meta’s massive Newton County data center have filed a lawsuit accusing the tech company and others of tainting their water and destroying their rural way of life. — Zachary Hansen, AJC.com, 1 Sep. 2026 For all intents and purposes, an unknown actor can wade unburdened into the depths of Bond, able to transform without a viewer’s prior expectation tainting the image of 007. — Emily Maskell, IndieWire, 10 July 2026 District Court Judge Tony Graf ordered measures to prevent the comments by Utah County prosecutor Christopher Ballard from tainting potential jurors should the case go to trial. — Reuters, NBC news, 26 June 2026 The case has attracted enormous media attention and concerns from both sides about misinformation tainting the potential jury pool. — Rebecca Boone, Chicago Tribune, 22 June 2026 Protagonist Jo’s mother disappeared when Jo was a teen, tainting her daughter with the stain of possible witchcraft. — Literary Hub, 2 June 2026 At a time of intensifying divisions at home, a depiction of Ecuador could offer an Edenic, new-world landscape free from the partisanship tainting Church’s New England landscapes. — Sebastian Smee, New Yorker, 4 May 2026 Now, streaming is tainting the postseason. — Troy Renck, Denver Post, 15 Apr. 2026 Played by cisgender actress Kathleen Turner, Charles proved to be one of the more divisive characters from Friends, tainting its cultural legacy for some critics. — Ryan Coleman, Entertainment Weekly, 16 Feb. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for tainting
  1. marring
  2. polluting
  3. spoiling
  4. poisoning
  5. staining
  6. contaminating
  7. darkening
  8. touching
Verb
  • The Trib is withholding Nick’s full name to avoid marring his reputation in the eyes of future employers or others who might run a search on him.
    — Kate Payne, Miami Herald, 30 Sep. 2026
  • The latter track takes overt inspiration from Sofia Coppola’s 2006 film Marie Antoinette, as Jepsen beckons her love to engage in life’s vices with her, like marring bedsheets with fruit stains and dashing nude through the garden.
    — Jaeden Pinder, Rolling Stone, 14 Sep. 2026
Definition of marring
Verb
  • In recent years, the plastics industry has touted the promise of chemical recycling, a set of costly, often polluting technologies that break plastic into its molecular building blocks.
    — Lisa Song, ProPublica, 29 Oct. 2026
  • Any type of foreign material can harm a hydrothermal feature, either by clogging the water supply, polluting the water or blocking its runoff channel, according to the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.
    — Sadie Chafe, FOXNews.com, 25 Oct. 2026
Definition of polluting
Verb
  • London — Cyberattacks on grocery store refrigeration systems across Europe sent temperatures soaring on Monday, spoiling food and causing significant financial losses in the second such incident in less than a month.
    — Inaya Folarin Iman, CBS News, 4 Nov. 2026
  • Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images European supermarkets have become the center of another cyberattack, with hackers remotely heating fridges and spoiling food.
    — Sawdah Bhaimiya, CNBC, 3 Nov. 2026
Definition of spoiling
Verb
  • Her father, Steve Apa, told the New York Times that the cause was rhabdomyolysis, also known as rhabdo, a rare condition in which skeletal muscle breaks down and dies quickly, poisoning the body.
    — Jen Christensen, CNN Money, 4 Nov. 2026
  • Her father told The New York Times that she’d been stricken with rhabdomyolysis, a rare condition in which muscles can break down during exertion, poisoning the body.
    — Larry Neumeister, Chicago Tribune, 3 Nov. 2026
Definition of poisoning
Verb
  • Tips To Keep Your Sink Clean Longer Rinse the sink after every use to get rid of food debris that can cause odors, get rid of soap scum, and reduce staining.
    — Karen Brewer Grossman, Southern Living, 18 Oct. 2026
  • Hydrogen peroxide acts as a mild disinfectant that kills mold and bacteria and is very helpful for light staining.
    — Asia London Palomba, The Spruce, 27 Sep. 2026
Definition of staining
Verb
  • Simon Wohlfahrt | Afp | Getty Images As France’s economic and political woes mount, investors are asking whether the country’s debt problems risk contaminating the rest of the euro zone.
    — Jenni Reid,Chloe Taylor, CNBC, 23 Oct. 2026
  • Lincoln Park Zoo sits atop a former burial ground, Chicago City Cemetery, which was moved in the 1860s amid concerns that the graves were contaminating the water supply.
    — Jennifer Day, Chicago Tribune, 8 Oct. 2026
Definition of contaminating
Verb
  • This approach offers a bold personal statement without overwhelming or darkening the entire room.
    — Timothy Dale, The Spruce, 3 Nov. 2026
  • Abdalla’s fall refresh enhances her brunette base by darkening her roots and replacing those golden ribbons with warm brunette tones for lived-in dimension.
    — Emily Tannenbaum, Glamour, 20 Oct. 2026
Definition of darkening
Verb
  • Because Huang is the public face of Nvidia and directs its engineering strategy, any foreign intelligence contact touching his inner circle is certain to draw scrutiny from US defense officials.
    — Aman Tripathi, Interesting Engineering, 9 Nov. 2026
  • The answer was body contact, which helps reveal which couple is real, so the team settled on choreography with plenty of touching.
    — Naman Ramachandran, Variety, 7 Nov. 2026
Definition of touching

Browse Nearby Words

tainted
tainting
taintless
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Cite this Entry

“Tainting.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/tainting. Accessed 11 Nov. 2026.

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