Word.ws English Dictionary

taint

/teɪnt/

taint noun: a contamination, decay or putrefaction, especially in food. Also the alternative spelling of 'taint.

Noun (1)

taint (plural taints)

  1. A contamination, decay or putrefaction, especially in food.
  2. A tinge, trace or touch.
    • There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lies, - which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world - what I want to forget.1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 216
  3. A mark of disgrace, especially on one's character; blemish.
  4. (obsolete) Tincture; hue; colour.
  5. (obsolete) Infection; corruption; deprivation.
    • A prison taint was on everything there. The imprisoned air, the imprisoned light, the imprisoned damps, the imprisoned men, were all deteriorated by confinement.1855 December – 1857 June, Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1857, →OCLC
    • He had inherited from his ancestors a scrofulous taint, which it was beyond the power of medicine to remove.1856 December, [Thomas Babington] Macaulay, “Samuel Johnson”, in T[homas] F[lower] E[llis], editor, The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, new edition, London: Longman, Green...
  6. A marker indicating that a variable is unsafe and should be subjected to additional security checks.
    • Using Apache version 1.3.29 and Perl version 5.8.2, we tracked the following sequence of taints […]2006, Jim Chow, Stanford University. Computer Science Dept, Understanding data lifetime (page 33)

Verb (1)

taint (third-person singular simple present taints, present participle tainting, simple past and past participle tainted)

  1. (transitive) To contaminate or corrupt (something) with an external agent, either physically or morally.
    • His unkindness may defeat my life, / But never taint my love.c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
    Synonyms:
    leper
  2. (transitive) To spoil (food) by contamination.
  3. (intransitive) To be infected or corrupted; to be touched by something corrupting.
    • I cannot taint with fear.c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
  4. (intransitive) To be affected with incipient putrefaction.
    • Meat soon taints in warm weather.
  5. (transitive) To mark (a variable) as unsafe, so that operations involving it are subject to additional security checks.
  6. (Australia, transitive) To invalidate (a share capital account) by transferring profits into it.

Noun (2)

taint (plural taints)

  1. A thrust with a lance, which fails of its intended effect.
    • This taint he follow'd with his sword, drawn from a silver sheath, Which lifting high, he struck his helm full where his plume did stand, On which it piecemeal brake, and fell from his unhappy hand.1857, Homerus, translated by George Chapman, The Iliads: Never Before in Any Language Truly Translated, page 74
  2. An injury done to a lance in an encounter, without its being broken; also, a breaking of a lance in an encounter in a dishonorable or unscientific manner.

Verb (2)

taint (third-person singular simple present taints, present participle tainting, simple past and past participle tainted)

  1. (transitive) To damage, as a lance, without breaking it; also, to break, as a lance, but usually in an unknightly or unscientific manner.
    • Do not fear; I have / A staff to taint, and bravely.1624 November 3 (first performance), Philip Massinger, “The Parliament of Love”, in W[illiam] Gifford, editor, The Plays of Philip Massinger, […], volume II, London: […] G[eorge] and W[illiam] Nicol...
  2. (intransitive) To thrust ineffectually with a lance.

Noun (3)

taint (plural taints)

  1. (US, slang, vulgar) The perineum.
    • Sorry you feel that way. But since your mother sucks cocks in hell if I go there I won't be rotting.....I'll be on line right behind you hoping to get another good head job from your Mom or Sister....if you can remember which is which.......(Moms the one with the beard on her taint)2000 June 17, Marc Newman, “Re: Americas are overated”, in talk.politics.guns (Usenet)
    • Even her taint's raw?2005 July 14, Noodles Jefferson, “Re: My Wife's Raw Comments”, in rec.sport.pro-wrestling (Usenet)

Also used as

taint is also the alternative spelling of 'taint.

taint meaning in Telugu, Malayalam, Punjabi and Odia

taint in Telugu

కళంకం

taint in Malayalam

കളങ്കങ്ങൾ

taint in Punjabi

ਦਾਗ਼ ਲਾਉਣਾ

taint in Odia

କଳଙ୍କ

Examples of taint in a sentence

  • Cork taint is one of the most recognizable wine faults.
  • I seem to remember that it included change not only from all taint of Bushery but also from Clinonism.
  • The two senators have been tripping over each other to distance themselves from the taint of Beltway insiderdom.

All 10 example sentences with taint

Synonyms of taint

All synonyms of taint

Forms of taint

Noun
pluraltaints
Verb
third-person singular presenttaints
present participletainting
past participletainted
pasttainted

Past tense of taint: tainted

Plural of taint: taints

Origin of taint

From Middle French teint, from Old French teint (past participle of teindre (“to dye, to tinge”)), from Latin tinctum (past participle of tingere); compare tint.

From Middle English taynt, aphetic form of attaynt, atteynt, from Old French atteinte (“a blow, stroke”). Compare with attaint.

Reportedly from the phrase “'tain't your balls and 'tain't your ass”. Ascribed to E.E. Landy's Underground Dict. (1972) is the following explanation: ‘'taint their ass and 'taint their pussy.’

Words formed from taint

Words that rhyme with taint

10 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about taint

What does taint mean?
Taint means a contamination, decay or putrefaction, especially in food.
What is taint in Telugu?
Taint in Telugu is కళంకం. See Taint meaning in Telugu.
What part of speech is taint?
Taint can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce taint?
Taint is pronounced /teɪnt/.
What is the plural of taint?
The plural of taint is taints.

Words near taint in the dictionary

  1. tainiolite
  2. Taino
  3. tainoceratid
  4. tainoceratids
  5. Tainos
  6. taint
  7. taintable
  8. tainted
  9. taintedness
  10. tainter
  11. Tainter gate

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: taint (page history and authors); taint (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); taint (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); taint (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); taint (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-taint.ogg, en-au-taint.ogg.

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