adulterate

adj

1. (archaic, literary)Corrupted or made impure by being mixed with something else; adulterated.

   “Theſe, and other like places in abundance through all thoſe ſhort Epiſtles, muſt either be adulterat, or elſe Ignatius [of Antioch] was not Ignatius, nor a Martyr, but moſt adulterate, and corrupt himſelf.”

2. (archaic, literary)Tending to commit adultery; relating to or being the product of adultery; adulterous.

   “I am poſſeſt with an adulterate blot, / My bloud is mingled with the crime of luſt: [...]”

   “I [i.e., ay] that inceſtuous, that adulterate beaſt, / With witchcraft of his wits, with trayterous gifts, / O wicked wit, and giftes that haue the power / So to ſeduce; wonne to his ſhamefull luſt / The will of my moſt ſeeming vertuous Queene; [...]”

   “[C]urse the day / When first Spain's queen beheld the black-ey'd boy, / And gore-fac'd Treason sprung from her adulterate joy.”

verb

1. (archaic, literary, transitive)To corrupt, to debase (someone or something).

   “For thus, that King violated that Oath which he ought moſt religiouſly to have ſworn to; but that he might not ſeem openly and publickly to violate it, he craftily adulterated and corrupted it; and leaſt he himſelf ſhould be accounted perjur'd, he turn'd the very Oath into a Perjury. [...] And who durſt pervert and adulterate that Law which he thought the only Obſtacle that ſtood in his way, and hindred him from perverting all the reſt of the Laws?”

2. (archaic, literary, transitive)To make less valuable or spoil (something) by adding impurities or other substances.

   “to adulterate coins, drugs, food and drink, etc.”

   “The present war has so adulterated our tongue with strange words, that it would be impossible for one of our great grandfathers to know what his posterity have been doing, were he to read their exploits in a modern newspaper.”

3. (archaic, literary, transitive)To commit adultery with (someone).
4. (archaic, literary, transitive)To defile (someone) by adultery.

   “Yet ſome would perſwade us, that this abſurd opinion was King Davids; becauſe in the 51st Pſalm he cries out to God, Againſt thee onely have I ſinn'd; as if David had imagin'd that to murder Uriah and adulterate his Wife, had bin no ſinn againſt his Neighbour, when as that Law of Moſes was to the King expreſly, Deut. 17. not to think ſo highly of himſelf above his Brethren.”

5. (also, archaic, figuratively, intransitive, literary)To commit adultery.

   “But Fortune, oh, / She is corrupted, chang’d, and wonne from thee, / Sh’adulterates hourely with thine Vnckle Iohn, / And with her golden hand hath pluckt on France / To tread downe faire reſpect of Soueraigntie, / And made his Maieſtie the bawd to theirs.”