Literary notes about Contaminate (AI summary)
The term "contaminate" has been flexibly employed in literature to signify both literal and metaphorical defilement. In some texts, it conveys an environmental or material sense—as in the prohibition against polluting water-sheds and supplies [1]. Elsewhere, it emerges as a metaphor for moral corruption, with early American rhetoric advising against actions that defile the virtue of chastity [2] and later discussions critiquing the degradation of cultural and social standards through coarse language and behavior [3]. The word further appears in narratives as a charge against those who taint honor, as seen in Fielding's scolding of a character for sullying a noble reputation [4], while modernist works invoke it to describe the pollution of social or national purity [5], and Dickens uses it to negotiate the contamination of class values by lower pursuits [6].
- Visitors must not contaminate water-sheds or water supplies.
— from Glacier National Park [Montana] by United States. Department of the Interior - Exercise thy crueltie behinde our backes, and vppon our lives if thou liste, so that thou doe not contaminate and defile the vertue of chastitie.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - {202} The coarseness of others, in manner and language, must either disgust or contaminate all their subordinates.
— from The Gentlemen's Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness by Cecil B. Hartley - “Doth it become such a villain as you are,” cries Jones, “to contaminate the name of honour by assuming it?
— from History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding - Saint Patrick would want to land again at Ballykinlar and convert us, says the citizen, after allowing things like that to contaminate our shores.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce - Do not fear, Mr Boffin, that I shall contaminate the premises which your gold has bought, with my lowly pursuits.
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
