CORRUPTION • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Corruption

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/kərˈəpʃən/ Listen

noun

Corruption n.

1.

The act of corrupting or making putrid, or state of being corrupt or putrid; decomposition or disorganization, in the process of putrefaction; putrefaction; deterioration. "The inducing and accelerating of putrefaction is a subject of very universal inquiry; for corruption is a reciprocal to "generation"."

2.

The product of corruption; putrid matter.

3.

The act of corrupting or of impairing integrity, virtue, or moral principle; the state of being corrupted or debased; loss of purity or integrity; depravity; wickedness; impurity; bribery. "It was necessary, by exposing the gross corruptions of monasteries,... to exite popular indignation against them." "They abstained from some of the worst methods of corruption usual to their party in its earlier days." Note: Corruption, when applied to officers, trustees, etc., signifies the inducing a violation of duty by means of pecuniary considerations.

4.

The act of changing, or of being changed, for the worse; departure from what is pure, simple, or correct; as, a corruption of style; corruption in language.

Corruption of blood (Law), taint or impurity of blood, in consequence of an act of attainder of treason or felony, by which a person is disabled from inheriting any estate or from transmitting it to others. "Corruption of blood can be removed only by act of Parliament."

Synonyms: Putrescence; putrefaction; defilement; contamination; deprivation; debasement; adulteration; depravity; taint. See Depravity.

See images of 'Corruption'

Etymology of 'Corruption'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Corruption" Quotes from Famous Books

... Canadians were a conquered people, but they had found the British king no tyrant and they had experienced the paradox of being freer under the conqueror than they had been under their own sovereign. The last days of French rule in Canada were disgraced by corruption and tyranny almost unbelievable. The Canadian peasant had been cruelly robbed and he had conceived for his French rulers a dislike which appears still in his attitude towards the motherland of France. For his new British master he had assuredly no love, but he ...

— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong

... veil their thought more; even the lower class in towns employ more restraint, more euphemisms, than peasants. Thus in the towns a child may easily fail to comprehend when risky subjects are talked of in his presence. It may be said that the corruption of towns, though more concealed, is all the deeper. Maybe, but that concealment preserves children from it. The town child sees prostitutes in the street every day without distinguishing them from other people. In the country he would every day hear it stated in the crudest ...

— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... escape. He forced himself to regard the great Enemy of Man as his best friend—his only comforter and refuge. But just when he deemed himself well armed, least vulnerable, and most secure, the awful reality of death—its horrible accompaniments—dissolution, corruption, rottenness, decay, and its still more awful and obscure uncertainties, started suddenly before him, and sent a sickening chill through every pore of his unnerved flesh. Then he retreated from his position—fled, as it were, for life, and dared not look behind, ...

— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... people did not know what to do with their money. There were sumptuary laws which forbade their spending it, either they or their wives or daughters, in dress; apparently they could not even wear Genoa velvet, which had to be sold abroad for the corruption of the outside world; and this is said to be the reason why there were so many palaces built in Genoa in the days of the republic. People who did not wish to figure in that hall of fame put their surplus into the immense and often ugly edifices which we still see ministering to their pride ...

— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells

... than did George Poindexter the people of Mississippi. His talents were indisputably of the first order, and, whatever may have been his short comings morally, none can say his political life was stained with selfishness or corruption. Every trust reposed in him was faithfully and ably discharged, and to him, more than to any of her public servants, is she indebted for the proud position she occupied before the tyrants' heel was ...

— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

Copyright © 2025 Diccionario ingles.com