a. [f. TAINT v. + -ABLE.] Liable to taint or be tainted.
1841. Lit. Gaz., 16 Jan., 38/3. The chambermaids say, ‘Handsome is as handsome does’; but this is not the case with ‘blood,’ true gentle blood, which is not taintable, and has a Gannal process to preserve it for generations.
1854. Putnam’s Monthly, III. Feb., 198/2. There is a passage in Adam’s blessing to the Woman, which ought to be printed on broad-sheets, and scattered by colporteurs throughout the length and breadth of these United States, till a copy were in the hands of every individual tainted or taintable with the prevailing heresies on the position of woman.
1864. Blackmore, Clara Vaughan, I. xiv. 288. So we got all that was taintable into the little yard, while Tom, who never stole, except when quite sure of impunity, looked on very sagely.
1876. Country Gentlemen’s Mag. (N.S.), IV. July, 526. But milk is an article which is so easily taintable, that those who trace evil to it, should be ready to say at what point the evil touched, and to whose hand it was traceable.
1892. W. Marshall, Visible God, xxvi. 341. But the spiritual body, being incorruptible, shall neither be tainted nor taintable.
1916. Statist, LXXXVIII. 25 Nov., 1166/1. Milk is perishable, ‘taintable,’ and liable to accident in transit, so that the urban price and the local price can never fairly be the same.
