Definitions for: Corruption


[n] destroying someone's (or some group's) honesty or loyalty; undermining moral integrity; "corruption of a minor"; "the big city's subversion of rural innocence"
[n] moral perversion; impairment of virtue and moral principles; "the luxury and corruption among the upper classes"; "moral degeneracy followed intellectual degeneration"; "its brothels; its opium parlors; its depravity"
[n] lack of integrity or honesty (especially susceptibility to bribery); use of a position of trust for dishonest gain
[n] decay of matter (as by rot or oxidation)
[n] in a state of progressive putrefaction



Webster (1913) Definition: Cor*rup"tion (k?r-r?p"sh?n), n. [F. corruption, L.
corruptio.]
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''. --Bacon.

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. --Hallam.

They abstained from some of the worst methods of
corruption usual to their party in its earlier days.
--Bancroft.

Note: Corruption, when applied to officers, trustees, etc.,
signifies the inducing a violation of duty by means of
pecuniary considerations. --Abbott.

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. --Blackstone.

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

Synonyms: corruptness, degeneracy, depravity, putrescence, putridness, rottenness, subversion

Antonyms: incorruption, incorruptness

See Also: debasement, decay, degradation, dishonesty, immorality, infection, jobbery, putrefaction, rot, venality

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