maculate

1. 1.

   morally blemished; stained or impure

   Synonymsdefiled

   Similarimpure
2. 2.

   spotted or blotched

   Similardirty

Other forms of maculate

past tense

maculated·

present participle

maculating·

third person

maculates·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about maculate

What does maculate mean?

maculate means "make dirty or spotty, as by exposure to air; also used metaphorically". That is the primary sense; the word has 4 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in maculate?

maculate has 3 syllables: ma-cu-late. The stress falls on "ma".

What is another word for maculate?

Close synonyms include tarnish, stain, sully, defile, foul. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is maculate a common word?

maculate is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.