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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Corruption \Cor*rup"tion\ (k?r-r?p"sh?n), noun [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}.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
corruption
noun
1: lack of integrity or honesty (especially susceptibility to bribery); use of a position of trust for dishonest gain [syn: {corruptness}] [ant: {incorruptness}]
2: in a state of progressive putrefaction [syn: {putrescence}, {putridness}, {rottenness}]
3: decay of matter (as by rot or oxidation)
4: 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" [syn: {degeneracy}, {depravity}]
5: 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" [syn: {subversion}]
6: inducement (as of a public official) by improper means (as bribery) to violate duty (as by commiting a felony); "he was held on charges of corruption and racketeering"
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
206 Moby Thesaurus words for "corruption": abandon, abandonment, abjection, abomination, abuse of terms, acrostic, adulteration, alienation, amphibologism, amphiboly, anagram, antiphrasis, atrocity, bad, bane, barbarism, bastardizing, befouling, befoulment, biodegradability, biodegradation, blight, brainwashing, breakup, bribery, bribery and corruption, bribing, cacoepy, cacology, calembour, carrion, college of Laputa, colloquialism, contamination, corrosion, corruptedness, corruptness, counterindoctrination, criminality, crookedness, crying evil, cutting, damage, dandruff, debasement, decadence, decadency, decay, decomposition, defilement, degeneracy, degenerateness, degeneration, degradability, degradation, demoralization, depravation, depravedness, depravity, despoliation, destruction, detriment, deviousness, dilapidation, dilution, dishonesty, dishonor, disintegration, disorganization, dissoluteness, dissolution, doctoring, envenoming, equivocality, equivoque, evasiveness, evil, excrement, false coloring, feloniousness, festering, filth, fortifying, foul matter, fouling, fraudulence, fraudulency, furfur, gammacism, gangrene, graft, grievance, harm, havoc, hurt, ill, improbity, impropriety, indirection, indoctrination, infection, infelicity, injury, jeu de mots, lacing, lambdacism, localism, logogram, logogriph, malapropism, mess, metagram, mildew, mischief, misconstruction, misdirection, misguidance, misinformation, misinstruction, misinterpretation, misknowledge, misleading, mispronunciation, misrepresentation, missaying, misspeaking, misteaching, misusage, misuse, mold, moral pollution, moral turpitude, muck, mucus, mystification, mytacism, obfuscation, obscenity, obscurantism, obscuration, ordure, outrage, oxidation, oxidization, palindrome, paralambdacism, pararhotacism, paronomasia, perversion, play on words, poison, poisoning, pollution, profligacy, prostitution, pun, punning, pus, putrid matter, reindoctrination, reprobacy, resolution, rhotacism, rot, rottenness, rust, scurf, scuz, shadiness, shiftiness, slang, slanting, slime, slipperiness, smut, snot, solecism, sophistry, sordes, spiking, spoilage, spoonerism, straining, subornation, subversion, suppuration, taboo word, the worst, torturing, toxin, trickiness, turpitude, unconscientiousness, underhandedness, ungrammaticism, unsavoriness, unscrupulousness, unstraightforwardness, venom, vexation, vitiation, vulgarism, watering, woe, wordplay, wrong
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