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Contaminating   Listen
adjective
contaminating  adj.  
1.
Spreading contamination; especially radioactive contamination. Antonym: clean.
Synonyms: dirty.
2.
Causing moral or behavioral degredation. "The contaminating influence of violent movies"
Synonyms: corrupting.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Contaminating" Quotes from Famous Books



... his shrine (which involved the usual assumption of overshoes to prevent our infidel leather from contaminating the floor), we fell, after evading countless beggars and would-be guides, into the hands of a kindly old man who pressed handfuls of little white nuts upon us and who remains in my memory as the only independent Mussulman priest ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas

... sun-burnt, filthy in their clothing and indecent in all their customs." Under these circumstances it is not to be wondered at, in these dark ages, that some steps should be taken to stop these lawless desperadoes and vagabonds from contaminating our English labourers' and servant girls with their loose ideas of labour, cleanliness, honesty, morality, truthfulness, and religion. It was soon manifest what kind of strange people had begun to ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... response. "I will be her guardian, her mother. Get you beyond the grasp of slavery-get beyond its contaminating breath, and I will be Annette's mother. When you are safely there, when you can breathe the free air of liberty, write me, and she shall meet you. Leave her to me; think of her only in my care, and in my trust she will be happy. ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... encountered a band of Micmacs, which Le Loutre had posted at the dikes to resist the disembarkation. Some fighting ensued before Lawrence succeeded in leading ashore a body of troops. The motive of the turbulent abbe was to preserve the Acadians from the contaminating presence of heretics and enemies of his master, the French king. And, when he saw that he could not prevent the English from making a lodgment in the village, he went forward with his Micmacs and set it on fire, thus forcing the Acadian inhabitants to cross to the French camp at ...
— The Acadian Exiles - A Chronicle of the Land of Evangeline • Arthur G. Doughty

... not half so great as it is at present, more riot, debauchery, and vice, obtruded themselves upon the sight in a week, than could now be discovered by diligent search in a month. The corruption of manners was so general, that almost none escaped from its contaminating influence. Mechanics and other laboring men would leave their business in the day, and their families in the evening, to spend their time, dancing and drinking, in the dens of pollution which then abounded in "Naugus-Hole" and "Button-Hole." Merchants, ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 3: New-England Sunday - Gleanings Chiefly From Old Newspapers Of Boston And Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks

... intellectual langour that vents itself in long discussions, in breeding contemplation, mirages of the spirit. Milkau is gradually struck with something wrong in the settlement. Little by little it begins to dawn upon him that something of the Old-World hypocrisy, fraud and insincerity, is contaminating this supposedly virgin territory. Here he discovers no paradise a la Rousseau—no natural man untainted by the ills of civilization. Graft is as rampant as in any district of the world across the sea; cruelty is as rife. His pity is aroused by ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

... to these letters, for they brought to light the true feeling of the Natives towards us at the time, and it was evident from them that the sepoys had really been made to believe that we intended to destroy their caste by various unholy devices, of which the issue of contaminating cartridges was one. The seeds of disaffection had been sown by agitators, who thought they saw an opportunity for realizing their hope of overthrowing our rule, maintained as it was by a mere handful of Europeans in the midst of a vast population of Asiatics. ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... and sweet—flesh, fish, and vegetable extracts purer than ever cook manufactured. Three days' exposure to the dusty air suffices to render them muddy, fetid, and swarming with infusorial life. The liquids are thus proved, one and all, ready for putrefaction when the contaminating agent is applied. I invite my colleague to reflect on these facts. How will he account for the absolute immunity of a liquid exposed for months in a warm room to optically pure air, and its infallible putrefaction in a few days when exposed to dust-laden air? He must, ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... according to all accounts, much needed the guidance of the Gospel, especially a certain king of the people called Zulus, who was named Chaka or Dingaan, he was not sure which. This ferocious person he particularly desired to encounter, having little doubt that in the absence of the contaminating Boer, he would be able to induce him to see the error of his ways and change the national customs, especially those of fighting and, worse still, ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard

... her work quietly enough, and her hair was looking more golden, her dark eyelashes longer, her round pillar of a throat whiter than ever. We had done tea, and we had returned into the house-place that the minister might smoke his pipe without fear of contaminating the drab damask window-curtains of the parlour. He had made himself 'reverend' by putting on one of the voluminous white muslin neckcloths that I had seen cousin Holman ironing that first visit I had paid to the Hope ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... the ocular, rack the body tube down (for by so doing there is every likelihood of the front lens of the objective being forced through the cover-glass, and not only spoiling the specimen, but also contaminating the objective); but, on the contrary, withdraw his eye, rack the tube up, and commence again from ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre

... avoid her? She stiffens herself up and curls her lips when the girl goes by, as if there was something contaminating about her; and one night when we were in the music-room and Miss Smith was playing and singing 'Mrs. Brady' for us, Agnes came in with Amy and made a great fuss and noise, disturbing everybody in ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry

... large body might be lodged; for which plans were forwarded, and the expenses required authorised by the crown. It was intended to remove the convicts already there; thus to preserve the prisoners transported from the united kingdom from the contaminating example of their predecessors. A commandant was to be appointed, at a salary of L800 per annum, who was expected to avoid the extremes of laxity and severity; qualified by a deep interest in the moral welfare of the prisoners. To this office ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... propensities, it was impossible for Algernon Hurdlestone to escape from the contaminating influence of his uncle, to whom he was strongly attached, without pollution. He imbibed from him a relish for trifling amusements and extravagant expenditure, which clung to him through life. The ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie

... history, each, in their turn, governed him and France. The Marchioness du Pompadour was his first favorite. Ambitious, shrewd, unprincipled, and avaricious, she held the weak-minded king entirely under her control, and spread throughout the court an influence so contaminating that the whole empire was infected with the demoralization. Upon this woman he squandered almost the revenues of the kingdom. The celebrated Parc au Cerf, the scene of almost unparalleled voluptuousness, was reared ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... the first place it costs a franc which might be spent in food and raiment, and in the second we desire to preserve our ideals from the contaminating spectacle ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke

... that a well drains the surface soil in every direction for a distance from ten to thirty times its own depth, and that the average well is about twenty-five feet deep, you can readily see what a risk of contaminating the well is caused by every barn, outhouse, or pen within from sixty to a hundred and fifty ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson

... alone, we have said, rivetted Mrs. Sheppard's attention; and no sooner did she in some degree recover from the shock occasioned by the sight of her son's debased condition, than, regardless of any other consideration except his instant removal from the contaminating society by which he was surrounded, and utterly forgetting the more cautious plan she meant to have adopted, she rushed into the room, and summoned him to ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth

... it. "Hail, holy light!" exclaims the bard of "Paradise." Yes, light is holy. It is undefiled and pure, as when "God saw the light that it was good." Man has ravaged the earth and reddened the seas; but light has escaped his contaminating touch, and is still as God made it, unless, indeed, when man imprisons it within the stained glass of the cathedral, and then obligingly helps its dimness by lighting a score or so of tapers. Did no monk ever think of putting a stained window in the east, and compelling ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie

... hideous blind alley. Can any argument be more plain? Can any lesson be more salutary? "Under every guilty secret," writes the author, with her usual felicity, "there is a hidden brood of guilty wishes, whose unwholesome, infecting life is cherished by the darkness. The contaminating effect of deeds often lies less in the commission than in the consequent adjustment of our desires,—the enlistment of self-interest on the side of falsity; as, on the other hand, the purifying influence of public confession springs from the fact, that by it the hope in lies is forever swept away, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various

... monstrous, deceitful, and contaminating than that. It is the religion which teaches that the soul of man is purified by a few magical words (called absolution), which come from the lips of a miserable sinner, whose heart and intelligence have just been filled by the unmentionable impurities ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy

... yards, and then took up a position which enabled him to guard the hotel guests from having their digestions interfered with by the contaminating spectacle of a seedy man. To the manager's great relief, Mr. Holymead appeared, having been informed by the hall porter that a party who said his name was Kemp had asked to see him. The manager hurried towards Mr. Holymead and ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson

... awakened me? Thou shouldst show kindness to all creatures, as thou hast reason. Belonging to the animal species, we are ignorant of virtue. But being endued with reason, men show kindness towards creatures. Why do then reasonable persons like thee commit themselves to acts contaminating alike body, speech, and heart, and destructive of virtue? Thou knowest not what virtue is, neither hast thou taken council of the wise. And therefore it is that from ignorance, and childishness thou destroyest the lower animals. Say, who art thou, and what for ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... sense of responsibility and the beckoning of the high destiny of citizenship in a great republic begot such a fever of progress in the race that the problem is now that of dealing with the aspirations of the race rather than the more awful problem of trying to avoid the contaminating odor of a race dead to higher appeals, sinking and pulling the nation ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs

... worse for him, poor fellow; it would be an abuse of human power without precedent. So far as political power is concerned, we are nearly disarmed. The influx of population finds its way into the opened avenues of the North and West. And with opinions predisposed against our institutions, and the contaminating influence standing ready with open arms to embrace the great current, what can we expect? It's the increasing power made by foreign influx that's giving tone to our government. If our Southern Convention ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams

... officials, who had charge of all that appertained to funerals, such as the libitinarii, the designatores, and the like. All of which was wisely instituted by Numa Pompilius, as much to teach the Romans not to hold things relating to the dead in horror, or fly from them as contaminating to the person, as in order to fix in their memory that all that has had a beginning in birth must in like manner terminate in death, birth and death both being under the control and power of one and the same deity; for they ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier

... But that is a piece of benevolent shabbiness which must come to grief some day. In the meantime, and until the period arrives when honest poverty will be considered no crime, and when a seat next to a poor man will be thought nothing vulgar, or contaminating, whilst worshipping before Him who cares for souls not lucre, hearts not wealth, let the poor be put in some place where they can hear fairly without being unduly exhibited. The chapel we are noticing has a spacious appearance within, and has none of that ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus

... ominous clouding of the water, which, as Mr. Gosse had forewarned me, signified disaster of some sort, and, searching for the cause, I finally discovered the body of the little sepiola, which had died without being missed, and was contaminating with his decay the purity of the aquarium. The water must be changed at once. I sent out the servant for a fresh bucketful from the sea, while I poured the polluted liquid from ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne

... a minute, not answering the girl, as though he were loath to go close to the contaminating influence that seemed part and parcel of Lauzanne, and which was stretching out to envelop him. He was thinking moodily that he had played against a man who used loaded dice, and had lost through his own rashness. He ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser

... a hand or a horse power is a poor substitute, as by this means (which we find too common in breweries) the washings of the cellars have time to become putrid, particularly in summer, emitting the most offensive and unwholesome effluvia, contaminating the atmosphere, and frequently endangering both the health and lives of the workmen. This is a serious evil, and should in all cases, as much as possible, be avoided. It is true, there are times, when a choice of situation cannot be made; in that case, circumstances must ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger

... soothing surprise. Cold nods of good-morning greeted her, groups of whispering critics edged away from her contaminating presence. Even Peggy, the faithful, had gone over to the enemy. The nervous strain of the day told on her, and when she made a bad mistake in a recitation ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke

... usual exaggerations, even to a belief that she had used the arts of sorcery on Morales—huddled together in groups, heaping every opprobrious epithet upon her, and accusing her of exposing them all to the horrors of purgatory by contaminating them with her presence. And as the Sovereign re-appeared in her saloon with the leech Benedicto, whose aid she had summoned, there were many who ventured to conjure her not to expose herself to such pollution as the tending of a Jewess—to leave her to the fate her fraud so merited. ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar

... when they whisk across the street with averted looks. Didn't I tell you so, Captain Flin? The twelvemonth lacks a week, and Jerry Doolan has gone to his home with downcast mien and a heavy heart, because his old friend has purposely avoided him. Don't I know something of human nature, and how contaminating heaped-up coppers are? It is not every body that will bear even a moderate degree of wealth, particularly among those who have no other foundation to build their consequence upon. You are not wholly given over yet, Captain Flin, for there are evidences of self-accusings in your confession. "I'm ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith

... anxiously, "But you are not going?" Jane was slow in shaking off the limitations of the doctrine that branded all religions in a foreign country as idolatrous and contaminating. ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay

... have much cause to respect my friends' opinions, and I'm not afraid of the girl's contaminating me," Mrs. Keith replied. "Besides, Millicent lost her mother early and lived with her aunts until a few months before her father's death. I expect Eustace felt more embarrassed than grateful when she came to take care of him, but, ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss

... a letter to Senator Wade explaining to him how incapable is Hooker of commanding a large army, how his habits and associations are contaminating and ruinous to the spirit of the army, and that Hooker is to return to the command of a ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski

... has found out that on this point again the old Puritans were right. And quaintly enough, the party in the English Church who hold the Puritans most in abhorrence are the most scrupulous now upon this very point; and, in their dread of contaminating the minds of youth, are carrying education, at school and college, to such a more than Puritan precision that with the most virtuous and benevolent intentions they are in danger of giving lads merely a conventional education,—a hot-house training which will render ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley

... every guilty secret there is hidden a brood of guilty wishes, whose unwholesome infecting life is cherished by the darkness. The contaminating effect of deeds lies less in the commission than in the consequent adjustment of our desires—the enlistment of our self-interest on the side of falsity; as, on the other hand, the purifying effect of public confession ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... shameless creature was tripping downstairs as gayly as though the house belonged to her. The ease of her descent spoke for youth; it was in three minds that old fools are always more susceptible to the wiles of young adventuresses. The sisters averted their faces from the contaminating sight. Amzi was crossing the room and reached the open door as it framed his sister. He had a fine, instinctive sense of courtesy and even his pudgy figure could not diminish his dignity. He took Lois by the hand and led her to the broad hearth as though ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... blunder, you will laugh with me. Patience—I'll draw my chin as long as yours. Well, 't was my fault—one should be accurate— Jews, said I? when I meant Jews, Jewesses, And Jewlings! all betwixt the age Of twenty-four hours, and of five score years. Of either sex, of every known degree, All the contaminating vermin purged With one clean, searching ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus

... have endeavored to find new ways and means for the promotion and expansion of scientific Mind-healing, seeking to broaden its channels and, if possible, to build a hedge round about it that should shelter its perfections from the contaminating influences of those who have a small portion of its letter and less of its spirit. At the same time I have worked to provide a home for every true seeker and honest worker in ...
— Retrospection and Introspection • Mary Baker Eddy

... claim to any considerable delicacy of feeling, or to appear to be over scrupulous in matters of common decency. But there will occasionally, however, be found even amongst convicts those who will bear a pretty long period of imprisonment, during which they are subjected to a variety of contaminating influences, and yet not have their moral sensibilities completely destroyed. Of these I was one, and I felt that the treatment which I had now to undergo was conceived in a barbarous spirit, and was well-fitted to destroy utterly any feelings ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous

... was known to despise flasks. Rob turned up his eyes to the Virgin, and got from her some confidence, if not courage. He looked at the tempting bottle, beautiful in its fulness and total freedom from the contaminating society of flasks or tankards; then he turned a fearful eye on its laughing, rioting possessor, and anon sought again the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton

... temptress of Guestrow; and when in answer to her Highness's query, whether the evil woman had been punished for her wickedness, Mueller threw himself at the Duchess's feet and told her openly that the contaminating female was the Graevenitz, whom he had followed from Guestrow—he, the poor instrument of God's righteous wrath, her Highness indeed felt that here was the vengeance of the Almighty coming upon her enemy. Mueller was sincere enough in his abhorrence of the woman who had resisted and then insulted ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... "Well-named!—dirty, smeary, contaminating business," said Croyden. "And the best 'greasers' have the best places, I reckon. I prefer the unadorned garb of the civilian—and independence. I'll permit those fellows to fight the battles and draw the rewards—they ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott

... had first suggested the use of the poisoned bandage in the treatment of English prisoners' wounds? Who but Major von Piffinhoeffer had devised the very scheme of contaminating streams, which Tom and Roscoe had discovered? Who but Major von Piffinhoeffer had invented the famous "circle code" which had so long puzzled and baffled Uncle Sam's Secret Service agents? Who but Major von Piffinhoeffer had first suggested ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... of twenty millions of freemen, so richly endowed with all the faculties, resources, and artificial means which constitute power, unable to preserve its national existence, independence, and liberty, without help from the contaminating hand of tyranny, without sacrificing its honor by basely singing hosannas to the imperial butcher of Poland, at the very moment when the blood of the people of Kosciuszko and Pulaski cries to Heaven and mankind for vengeance? Is the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various

... satisfied, seek nothing more! You play the patron to a certain literary 'set' who produce books unfit to be read by any decent human being,—you work your way, by means of your title and position, through society, contaminating everything you touch! You contaminate ME by associating my name with yours!—and my aunt helps you in the wicked scheme! I came here to my own home—to the house where my father died—thinking that perhaps here at least I should find peace,"—and her voice shook as with tears—"that here, at least, ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... conquered. The weak things of this world had confounded the strong. In spite of the devilish cruelties of persecutors; in spite of the contaminating atmosphere of sin which surrounded her; in spite of having to form herself, not out of a race of pure and separate creatures, but by a most literal 'new birth' out of those very fallen masses who insulted and persecuted her; in spite of having to endure within herself continual outbursts ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley

... time in weeks we had something to eat other than the monotony of the short rations of an impoverished U-boat. Nobs sat between the girl and me and was fed with morsels of the Plesiosaurus steak, at the risk of forever contaminating his manners. He looked at me sheepishly all the time, for he knew that no well-bred dog should eat at table; but the poor fellow was so wasted from improper food that I couldn't enjoy my own meal had he been denied an immediate share ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... jumped at once to the conclusion that he must have communicated leprosy to his unfortunate herds while rescuing the little pig. Whether or not he was right in this conjecture, we cannot say; but the probability of his mere touch being so contaminating was sufficient to increase greatly the depression of spirits which had been stealing over him—a condition which was not a little aggravated by the fact that the white spot on his arm was slowly but surely spreading. Still the disease had not, so far, affected his general health ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne

... But thou, a man exalted high, Conspicuous in the world's keen eye, On record now, thy name's enrolled, And future ages will be told,— There lived a man named BANNEKER, An African Astronomer!— Thou need'st to have a special care, Thy conduct with thy talent square, That no contaminating vice, Obscure ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... therefore they cannot justly estimate the power of the priests. Another illustration. A friend of mine made some purchases and sent a man for them, one of five hundred Catholics in his employ. The poor fellow halted two hundred yards from the contaminating circle, and by the aid of a policeman, got the parcel brought to him—without risking his ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... according to Aristotle, was the seat of the soul, and the birthplace of the passions, for it held the natural fire, and in it centred movement, sensation and nourishment. The diaphragm, he believed, separated the heart, the seat of the soul, from the contaminating influences of the intestines. He did not advance beyond the conception that nerves were akin to ligaments and tendons, and he believed that the nerves originated in the heart, as did also the blood-vessels. He named the aorta and ventricles. ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott

... England will be in every respect as cheap, and infinitely more comfortable as a residence than any part of the Continent. The absentees who are worth reclaiming will return; those who prefer to remain on the Continent are much better there than if they were contaminating their countrymen with their presence. How true is the following observation from the author I before quoted on her ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... so painfully since the insult paid to his father by Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch four years before at the club. He conscientiously considered it dishonourable to remain in the service, and was inwardly persuaded that he was contaminating the regiment and his companions, although they knew nothing of the incident. It's true that he had once before been disposed to leave the army long before the insult to his father, and on quite other grounds, but he had hesitated. Strange as it is to write, the original design, ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... a little, but at last he made a plunge, and the dead animal was dragged into a hollow a couple of hundred yards away, so that there should be no fear of its contaminating the water-hole. Then the halters were cast off, thrown over the tent, and after a glance at Shanter, Norman mounted to take up the trail made by Rifle and Tim, but only leaped down again, and turned his horse out to graze; for there away in ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn

... Queen, "is he not yet satisfied? Must he even satiate his barbarous brutality with being an eye-witness of the horrid state into which he has thrown us? Save me," continued Her Majesty, "oh, save me from contaminating my feeble sight, which is almost exhausted, nearly parched up for the loss of my dear husband, by looking on him!—Oh, death! come, come and release me from ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 7 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... know. It is easy for persons with plenty of money to moralize on the shortcomings of others. I'll tell you a secret. I'm writing a book, and if it's a success, then good-bye to journalism. I don't like the spy business myself any too well; I'm afraid England is contaminating me, and if I stayed here a few years I might degenerate so far as to think your newspapers interesting. By the way, have you ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr

... the face of the earth, with a prosperous population on a high plane of civilization. Even the tropical diseases in Havana and other coast cities would disappear before modern methods of sanitation. In general, outside of a few cities, the island is healthful, notwithstanding the contaminating effect of the pestilential cities. Yellow fever, smallpox, and a few infectious diseases exist here continually, but ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... existing but in the recollection of the story-teller, and the green turf alone marking the lands they once inhabited. It fortunately happened, however, at the period alluded to, that the prophets, together with a few of the elder chiefs, who had stood aloof from the contaminating influence of the white men, were enabled to arouse the almost extinguished energy of the people, so far as to assemble them round a council-fire, that was lighted at early dawn one frosty morning, in the Moon of Falling Leaves, on the Prophets' Plain. The whole tribe was called ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... full-dress, and we took turns arraying ourselves in it for the Dexterville weekly parties. These gatherings interested me chiefly as outbreaks of the peculiar American humor that was very taking to me, in and out of the newspapers. Dancing being tabooed as immoral and contaminating, the young people had recourse to particularly energetic kissing games, which more than made up for their deprivation on the other score. It was all very harmless and very funny, and the winter wore away pleasantly enough in spite of hard ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... little Irishwoman, involuntarily putting out her hands as if she would snatch her infant from such a contaminating hold. ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie

... Ladies' Home Journal, are right in insisting upon greater frankness between parents and children and that every child should have a sex education at home instead of being compelled to pick it up from contaminating sources on the street and at school. And I may add that the world owes a debt to these men who have handled this delicate and difficult problem in a practical as well as a powerful manner; and I feel impelled to add that, in face of the ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various

... us looking forward to entrance upon another life. We are satisfied that our present life is not all, that we await another and true life. Likewise the sun awaits the restoration coming to it, to the earth and all creatures, when they shall be purified from the contaminating abuse of the devil ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther

... the enormity of the offence which by your own confession you have committed. You were sent to one of the best public schools in England. It is not likely that in the healthy atmosphere of such a school as Roughborough you can have come across contaminating influences; you were probably, I may say certainly, impressed at school with the heinousness of any attempt to depart from the strictest chastity until such time as you had entered into a state of matrimony. At Cambridge you were shielded from impurity by every ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... Mirah's own lips. Her voice, her accent, her looks—all the sweet purity that clothed her as with a consecrating garment made him shrink the more from giving her, either ideally or practically, an association with what was hateful or contaminating. But these fine words with which we fumigate and becloud unpleasant facts are not the language in which we think. Deronda's thinking went on in rapid images of what might be: he saw himself guided by some official scout into a dingy street; he entered through a dim doorway, ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... hog's blood. An animal so treated is called a hyperimmune (Fig. 85). The blood from the hyperimmunes is defibrinated and a preservative added, and after it has been tested for potency and freedom from contaminating organisms, ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.

... yourself, my friend," replied the empress, "to protect the youth of Austria from such contaminating influences. Why do those whom I appointed censors of the press permit the introduction of these ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... the movement. Her history from infancy had been one continued struggle for political rights. "Kentucky," said her governor in his message at the opening of the session of the State Legislature following the passage of the Alien and Sedition acts, "remote from the contaminating influences of European politics, is steady to the principles of pure Republicanism and will ever be the asylum of her persecuted votaries." The customary reply of the House took the shape of nine lengthy ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks

... are generally of such a kind that they would not of themselves constitute a very peculiar case against the English language; but their addition to the main list does very much strengthen the case. One intention in isolating them from the main list was to prevent their contaminating it with their weaker quality; but their separate classification crosses and sometimes overrides that more general distinction. Section iv has some literary interest; vi is inconsistent; the other sections are more or less scientific. These ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges

... which has been used in the previous processes. It is not a good plan to wash the finer grades of emery out of the proceeds of very rough grinding say with anything coarser than flour of emery—as there is a danger of thereby contaminating the finer grades with comparatively coarse glass particles (owing to their lightness) and this may lead to scratching. If the finer grades are very light in colour, it may be inferred that a considerable portion ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall

... moral and mental improvement, he established for them a school which he maintained for two years. He then proposed to these Negroes to go into the country and purchase land to remove them "from those contaminating influences which had so long crushed them in our cities and villages."[18] They consented on the condition that he would accompany them and teach school. He travelled through Canada, Michigan and Indiana, looking for a suitable location, and finally ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson

... the truth about life should have entered their daughter's bedroom would have seemed little short of profanation to both the rector and Mrs. Pendleton. The sacred shelves of that bookcase (which had been ceremoniously presented to her on her fourteenth birthday) had never suffered the contaminating presence of realism. The solitary purpose of art was, in Mrs. Pendleton's eyes, to be "sweet," and she scrupulously judged all literature by its success or failure in this particular quality. It seemed to her as wholesome to feed her daughter's growing ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... read the little lines of the doings of men; unnamed adventurers whose deeds were virile deeds; rough men, from whose contaminating touch society gathers up her silken skirts and passes by upon the other side; unlovely men, rolled-sleeved and open-throated, deep-seamed of face, and richly weather-tanned of arm, who tread roughshod the laws of little right and wrong; who drink red liquor and swear ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx

... settlement was therefore broken up in 1855, and convicts are now confined in different establishments in the United Kingdom, where, without subjecting them to absolute silence or solitude, they are separated from the contaminating society of each other. Under the present system, it is a fixed principle never to allow, if at all possible, the punishment—while it may be made to any extent disagreeable—to injure either the body or ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous

... pride of Virginia; but all were feeble in comparison with the enthusiastic fervor and prophetic instincts of George Mason. They reasoned, that slavery was inconsistent with Christianity, was in conflict with the rights of man; that it was a slow poison, daily contaminating the minds and morals of their people; that, by reducing a part of their own species to abject inferiority, they lost the idea of the dignity of man, which the hand of Nature had implanted within them for great and useful purposes; that, by the habit from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various



Words linked to "Contaminating" :   clean, corrupting, infectious, dirty



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