How to use contaminate in a sentence
17 example sentences · verb, adjective
Contaminate means to make something dangerous or toxic by introducing impurities or foreign matter. Example: “This water is contaminated. It isn't safe to drink.”
Examples of contaminate by meaning
verbTo make something dangerous or toxic by introducing impurities or foreign matter.
- This water is contaminated. It isn't safe to drink.
- Bombs and munitions meanwhile contain toxic substances that contaminate soil, water, and vegetation.2025 November 20, Simmone Shah, “Ukraine to Claim $44bn in Climate Damages From Russia. Why War Is So Bad For Emissions”, in TIME, archived...
verbTo make unfit for use by the introduction of unwholesome or undesirable elements.
- Do not contaminate the peanut butter with the jelly.
More sentences with contaminate
- Steel shot, unlike lead shot, avoids contaminating the land with spent lead.From the entry shot
- Forgetting to clear the sawdust around his workshop, Payton ended up contaminating the resin-ply matrix with wood particles during his hand layup.From the entry layup
- “If we keep spewing CO₂ and contaminating our atmosphere, there won’t be much of it left.”2025 May 9, Ajit Niranjan, “Plan for windfarm in German ‘fairytale forest’ stokes green energy culture war”, in The Guardian, →ISSN. From the entry wind turbine
- No bugs or berries, no real pooplike material to contaminate it.”2017 February 23, Gene Weingarten, “Does this rare coffee taste like poop to you?”, in The Washington Post. From the entry pooplike
- Surface runoff from ridgeline development can contaminate rivers and streams that supply drinking water downstream.2003, John R. Nolon, Open Ground: Effective Local Strategies for Protecting Natural Resources, Environmental Law Institute, →ISBN, page 29. From the entry ridgeline
- Earlier you mentioned a ghost, a revenant with which we may contaminate the Emperor.1969, Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah, published 2008, →ISBN, page 19. From the entry revenant
- The compromises and corruption on shore fail to contaminate or alter the joy-drenched, adrenalated play in the ocean.2015 July 13, Thad Ziolkowski, “‘Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life,’ by William Finnegan”, in New York Times. From the entry adrenalated
- Toxic runoff from rare earth mines in Myanmar is contaminating rivers that flow into Thailand, threatening the Mekong River and its basin's fisheries and farmland.2026 April 29, The Associated Press, “Rare earth mining is poisoning Mekong River tributaries, threatening ‘the world’s kitchen’”, in The…. From the entry runoff
- To this end, some developers use plants like rice and safflower that self-pollinate, reducing the risk of contaminating nonpharma plants by wind and insect pollination.2007 April 8, Denise Caruso, “How to Confine the Plants of the Future?”, in New York Times. From the entry nonpharma
- For example, individual bottles may leak chronically, may contaminate the samples being taken, e.g. chlorofluorocarbons, or may consistently mistrip or otherwise malfunction.1994, Requirements for WOCE Hydrographic Programme Data Reporting, page 38. From the entry mistrip
- For the most part Communists were victims of magic thinking, according to which an impure source contaminates the information that comes from it.1978 [1976], Leszek Kołakowski, translated by P[aul] S[teven] Falla, Main Currents of Marxism, volume III: The Breakdown, Oxford…. From the entry magic thinking
- Huge amounts of plastic waste are dumped in the environment and microplastics now contaminate the entire planet, from the summit of Mount Everest to the deepest oceans.2022 March 24, Damian Carrington, “Microplastics found in human blood for first time”, in The Guardian. From the entry microplastic
- The proposed study will deal with PCB and DDT which contaminates soils and groundwater in Malaysia through unengineered landfills and the use of pesticides for agriculture.2015 December 12, “Adsorption of DDT and PCB by Nanomaterials from Residual Soil”, in PLOS ONE, →DOI. From the entry unengineered
- One commonly used POP (persistent organic pollutant), organochlorine, may be responsible for contaminating the world's seafood supply, since pesticides can run off the land into streams, lakes, and reservoirs.2009, Edward Group, Complete Colon Cleanse: The At-Home Detox Program to Restore Good Health, Boost Vitality, and Ensure Longevity…. From the entry pop
Meaning of contaminate
- verb To make something dangerous or toxic by introducing impurities or foreign matter.
- verb To soil, stain, corrupt, or infect by contact or association.
- verb To make unfit for use by the introduction of unwholesome or undesirable elements.
Questions about contaminate in a sentence
- How do you use contaminate in a sentence?
- Contaminate is used as a verb and adjective. For example: “This water is contaminated. It isn't safe to drink.”
- What is a short sentence with contaminate?
- “Do not contaminate the peanut butter with the jelly.”
- What does contaminate mean?
- Contaminate means to make something dangerous or toxic by introducing impurities or foreign matter.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: contaminate (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this page: “How to use contaminate in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/contaminate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
