taints

Noun

taint (plural taints)

1. A contamination, decay or putrefaction, especially in food.

   Synonyms:

   adulterant, contamination, pollutant, adulterator, contaminant, contaminator, impurity, pollution, sophisticant

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
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)

See all 17 meanings of taint