adjective
- guilty of dishonest practices, as bribery; lacking integrity; crooked: a corrupt judge.
- debased in character; depraved; perverted; wicked; evil: a corrupt society.
- made inferior by errors or alterations, as a text.
- infected; tainted.
- decayed; putrid.
verb (used with object)
- to destroy the integrity of; cause to be dishonest, disloyal, etc., especially by bribery.
- to lower morally; pervert: to corrupt youth.
- to alter (a language, text, etc.) for the worse; debase.
- to mar; spoil.
- to infect; taint.
- to make putrid or putrescent.
- English Law. to subject (an attainted person) to corruption of blood.
verb (used without object)
- to become corrupt.
adjective
- lacking in integrity; open to or involving bribery or other dishonest practicesa corrupt official; corrupt practices in an election
- morally depraved
- putrid or rotten
- contaminated; unclean
- (of a text or manuscript) made meaningless or different in meaning from the original by scribal errors or alterations
- (of computer programs or data) containing errors
verb
- to become or cause to become dishonest or disloyal
- to debase or become debased morally; deprave
- (tr) to infect or contaminate; taint
- (tr) to cause to become rotten
- (tr) to alter (a text, manuscript, etc) from the original
- (tr) computing to introduce errors into (data or a program)
adj.mid-14c., from Old French corropt “unhealthy, corrupt; uncouth” (of language), and directly from Latin corruptus, past participle of corrumpere “to destroy; spoil,” figuratively “corrupt, seduce, bribe,” from com-, intensive prefix (see com-), + rup-, past participle stem of rumpere “to break” (see rupture (n.)). Related: Corruptly; corruptness. v.mid-14c., “contaminate, impair the purity of,” from Latin corruptus, past participle of corrumpere (see corrupt (adj.)). Late 14c. as “pervert the meaning of,” also “putrefy.” Related: Corrupted; corrupting.