inficiate
/ɪnˈfɪʃiˌeɪt/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
4
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "This logical contradiction which therefore inficiates the validity of a notion can have two aspects: either the notion reached by our argument is uncertain, that is it is not the only one which may be derived as a conclusion from our syllogism and then we have the aniścita or it is a petitio principi^([sic]), the sādhyasama."
- "In connection with this last point it would be of interest to see if Favaroni inficiates the necessity of the sacrament of penance, and in this would be a forerunner of the lutherans^([sic])."
- "The massive usage of the same peptide blocks in microbial and human proteomes inficiates any causal relationship(s) between sharing of microbial amino acid motifs/structures and autoimmune reactions in humans."
Etymology
Borrowed from Italian inficiare + English -ate (suffix forming verbs), from Medieval Latin īnficior, alteration of Classical Latin īnfitior (“to deny, contradict”), from *īnfitiae (“denial”) (see īnfitiās eō), from fateor (“to admit, acknowledge”). Presumably originally a mistranslation by Italian speakers; compare aprimorate (“to elevate, improve”), taken from Portuguese in a similar manner. Earlier mentions of the word in Randle Cotgrave and Henry Cockeram's Early Modern English dictionaries are likely unconnected to the modern borrowing from Italian.
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ɪnˈfɪʃiˌeɪt/
- British English: /ɪnˈfɪʃiˌeɪt/