Viti

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To impair the quality, effectiveness, or validity of something; to make faulty or defective; to spoil or corrupt a condition or state
2. To diminish or weaken the value or integrity of an object, concept, or process; to introduce flaws or defects that reduce usefulness or worth; to contaminate or degrade
3. To undermine the soundness or purity of an element or system; to cause impairment or disfigurement that leads to reduced function; to cause moral or physical deterioration

Etymology: Latin "vitium" meant "fault, blemish, or defect," and "vitiare," to make faulty or spoil, was built from it. English borrowed the verb as "vitiate" around the fifteenth century, and it kept the Latin sense of spoiling something from the inside. Lawyers still use it in that sense: a contract procured by fraud is said to be vitiated, meaning its validity is undermined even if it looks complete. "Vice" comes from the same Latin "vitium," but it reached English through Old French, which makes the two a doublet. "Vice" entered English earlier and took on the moral sense of a fault in a person's character, while "vitiate" stayed closer to the physical and technical sense of a flaw that ruins a thing's worth. The clipped form "viti" appears here only as the stem of "vitiate."

Synonyms: blemish, spoil, corrupt, taint, degrade

Antonyms: improve, enhance, purify, refine, clean