ppl. a. [f. TAINT v. + -ED1.]
1. Stained, tinged; contaminated, infected, corrupted; touched with putrefaction or incipient decay; affected with some corrupting influence.
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb., I. (1586), 43. He thinkes it better to let that [corn] alone that is alredy corrupted, and … when so euer ye neede to occupie it, to take away that is taynted, and to vse the rest.
a. 1619. Fletcher, etc., Knt. Malta, IV. ii. Treason and tainted thoughts are all the gods Thou worship’dst.
1630. B. Jonson, New Inn, II. ii. Host. … And speakes a little taynted, fly-blowne Latin, After the Schoole. Bea. Or Stratford o’ the Bow. For Lillies Latine, is to him vnknow.
1709. Swift, Adv. Relig., Wks. 1755, II. I. 99. Women of tainted reputations.
1712. Addison, Hymn, ‘How are Thy Servants blest.’ Thro’ burning Climes I pass’d unhurt, And breath’d in tainted Air.
1821. Wordsw., Sonn., Virgin. Woman! above all women glorified, Our tainted nature’s solitary boast.
1837. M. Donovan, Dom. Econ., II. 243. In what manner charcoal boiled with tainted meat can affect the interior.
1883. Sir W. B. Brett, in Law Rep., 11 Q. Bench Div. 454. That these statements were tainted evidence, because they came from accomplices.
b. Having a taint of disease; infected with latent disease. Cf. TAINT sb. C. 2 b.
1596. Shaks., Merch. V., IV. i. 114. I am a tainted Weather of the flocke, Meetest for death.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Past., I. 70. Nor fear a Rott from tainted Company.
1897. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., II. 924. Children of parents engaged in the manufacture of matches and tainted with phosphorism.
2. Imbued with the scent of an animal (usually a hunted animal). (Cf. BLEMISH sb. 4.) Obs. or arch.
1704. Addison, Campaign, 122. So the stanch Hound the trembling Deer pursues, And smells his footsteps in the tainted dews.
1732. Pope, Ess. Man, I. 214. What modes … Of smell, the headlong lioness between, And hound sagacious on the tainted green.
1810. Scott, Lady of L., I. ii. [The stag] A moment snuffed the tainted gale.
† 3. Tinted, stained. Obs. rare.
1797. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3), XIII. 715/2. They also use a kind of paper for drawing, which is called tainted paper.
