vitiating

Verb

vitiate (third-person singular simple present vitiates, present participle vitiating, simple past and past participle vitiated)

1. (transitive) To spoil, make faulty; to reduce the value, quality, or effectiveness of something.
   • The least admixture of a lie, -- for example, the taint of vanity, the least attempt to make a good impression, a favorable appearance, -- will instantly vitiate the effect.1838, Ralph Waldo Emerson, An Address delivered before the Senior Class in Divinity College, Cambridge, Sunday evening, 15 July, 1838

   Synonyms:

   mess up, ruin, degrade, devalue, ball up, blight, bumble, botch, bugger up, bungle

2. (transitive) To debase or morally corrupt.
   • Dissolute and vitiated alike, they confided in, and ever acted in mutual concert with each other's plans, according to the deep subtleties of their reasonings, which linked them together by some secret spell.1838, [Letitia Elizabeth] Landon (indicated as editor), chapter III, in Duty and Inclination: […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 25

   Synonyms:

   immoralize, lead astray, warp, adulterate, corrupt, debauch, demoralize, detort, file, pervert

3. (archaic, transitive) To violate, to rape.
   • ‘Crush the cockatrice,’ he groaned, from his death-cell. ‘I am dead in law’ – but of the girl he denied that he had ‘attempted to vitiate her at Nine years old’; for ‘upon the word of a dying man, both her Eyes did see, and her Hands did act in all that was done’.1965, John Fowles, The Magus

   Synonyms:

   abuse, outrage, viole, constuprate, defile, defoul, dishonour, force, misuse, oppress

4. (transitive) To make something ineffective, to invalidate.
   • […]all the hinges of the animal frame are subverted, every animal function is vitiated; the carcass retains but just life enough to make it capable of suffering.1734, William Stukeley, Of the Gout, page 78

   Synonyms:

   annul, nullify, void, abrogate, belay, cancel, cease, cross out, desist, forbid