inficiate

Syllables: in·fi·ci·ateUK/ɪnˈfɪʃiˌeɪt/

inficiate verb: to render or demonstrate to be invalid; to invalidate or disprove.

Verb

inficiate (third-person singular simple present inficiates, present participle inficiating, simple past and past participle inficiated)

(transitive, especially non-native speakers' English) To render or demonstrate to be invalid; to invalidate or disprove.
- This logical contradiction which therefore inficiates the validity of a notion can have two aspects: either the notion reached by our argument is uncertain, that is it is not the only one which may be derived as a conclusion from our syllogism and then we have the aniścita or it is a petitio...1930, G[iuseppe] Tucci, “The Beginning of Buddhist Logic”, in On Some Aspects of the Doctrines of Māitreya [Nātha] and Asanga, Calcutta: Calcutta University Press, page 69
- In connection with this last point it would be of interest to see if Favaroni inficiates the necessity of the sacrament of penance, and in this would be a forerunner of the lutherans^([sic]).1958 April, Nicolaus Toner, “The doctrine of justification according to Augustine of Rome (Favaroni) (✝ 1443)”, in Augustiniana, volume 8, number 1/2, Augustinian Historical Institute, page 187
Synonyms:

invalidate, disprove

Synonyms of inficiate

Forms of inficiate

third-person singular present	inficiates
present participle	inficiating
past participle	inficiated
past	inficiated

Origin of inficiate

Borrowed from Italian inficiare + English -ate (suffix forming verbs), from Medieval Latin īnficior, alteration of Classical Latin īnfitior (“to deny, contradict”), from *īnfitiae (“denial”) (see īnfitiās eō), from fateor (“to admit, acknowledge”). Presumably originally a mistranslation by Italian speakers; compare aprimorate (“to elevate, improve”), taken from Portuguese in a similar manner. Earlier mentions of the word in Randle Cotgrave and Henry Cockeram's Early Modern English dictionaries are likely unconnected to the modern borrowing from Italian.

Questions about inficiate

What does inficiate mean?: Inficiate means to render or demonstrate to be invalid; to invalidate or disprove.
What part of speech is inficiate?: Inficiate is a verb.
How do you pronounce inficiate?: Inficiate is pronounced /ɪnˈfɪʃiˌeɪt/ (UK).
What is the past tense of inficiate?: The past tense of inficiate is inficiated.

Words near inficiate in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: inficiate (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “inficiate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/inficiate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.