impure
/ɪmˈpjʊə
/ /ɪmˈpjɔː/adjective
1Mixed with foreign matter; adulterated: an impure form of heroin...
- Natural gold is almost always impure, being alloyed with silver.
- All are combinations of other media and thus, necessarily impure.
- Robert Penn Warren's preference for impure rather than pure poetry made the same claim as Cleanth Brooks's ‘Irony as a Principle of Structure.’
Synonyms
adulterated, mixed, combined, blended, alloyed;
debased, degraded, defiled
technical admixed
1.1Dirty: a parasite that thrives in impure water...
- People develop many ailments due to impure water.
- The water is particularly impure and that's one of the reasons that many hotels are choosing to evacuate their residents.
- These deaths are a result of inadequate medical supplies, impure water and nutritional deficiencies.
Synonyms
contaminated, polluted, tainted, infected, sullied, defiled, unwholesome, poisoned;
dirty, filthy, unclean, foul;
unhygienic, unsanitary, insanitary
literary befouled
rare feculent
1.2(Of a colour) mixed with another colour.
2Morally wrong, especially in sexual matters: citizens suspected of harbouring impure thoughts...
- But part of the recognition of the Fall is to realize that though no person is wholly good or wholly evil, one is still obliged to fight on the side of justice, even if one's side is tainted by sin and impure motives.
- I'm not the only one either, who came here because they did something wrong or amoral or impure and is going to eternal damnation.
- His motives are impure but his impact is the equivalent of warming sunshine after a bleak winter of bitter darkness.
Synonyms
immoral, corrupt, sinful, wrongful, wicked, dishonourable;
depraved, degenerate, debauched, dissolute;
unchaste, lustful, lecherous, lewd, lascivious, prurient, obscene, dirty, indecent, unclean, wanton, ribald, risqué, smutty, improper, crude, vulgar, coarse, gross, pornographic
rare concupiscent
2.1Defiled or contaminated according to ritual prescriptions: the perception of woman as impure...
- The Pariyars' low status is continually emphasized through association with one of the most impure and contaminating phenomena of all in Hinduism - death.
- His spirit is considered to be impure, dangerous, contaminated and contagious.
- Jesus seems neither to have confirmed nor to have denied that eating impure food leads to ritual defilement.
Derivatives
impurely
/ /ɪmˈpjɔːli / adverb ...- Have I touched or embraced another impurely?
- Do I act impurely, using my selfishness to cause others to sin with the flesh?
impureness
- Now they all felt that impureness, they all felt that something just wasn't right here, but none of them spoke of it, none of them wanted the others to think them crazy.
Origin
Late Middle English (in the sense 'dirty, containing offensive matter'): from Latin impurus, from in- 'not' + purus 'pure'.