vitiation

Definition

A reduction in the value, or an impairment in the quality of something.

Etymology

From Latin vitiare (“to spoil, damage”).

Example Sentences

• "1810, George Wilson, M.D., F.R.D.E. Ch. II. General Sketch of Cavendish's Scientific Researches and Discoveries, in The Life of the Honᵇˡᵉ Henry Cavendish, p. 39. […] air was universally reputed to be a simple or elementary body. It was liable, according to the phlogistians, to vitiation, by the addition to it of phlogiston […] being more or less phlogisticated, according to the degree of its power to support respiration and combustion."
• "Lincoln once reprimanded a young army officer for indulging in a violent controversy with an associate. "No man who is resolved to make the most of himself," said Lincoln, "can spare time for personal contention. Still less can he afford to take the consequences, including the vitiation of his temper and the loss of self-control."