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Contamination   /kəntˌæmənˈeɪʃən/   Listen
Contamination

noun
1.
The state of being contaminated.  Synonym: taint.
2.
A substance that contaminates.  Synonym: contaminant.
3.
The act of contaminating or polluting; including (either intentionally or accidentally) unwanted substances or factors.  Synonym: pollution.



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"Contamination" Quotes from Famous Books



... to Satan. Like a huge serpent he has been winding his way throughout this age, leaving everywhere his contamination. While Satan is not omniscient and perfect in knowledge, he has sufficient knowledge of his destiny and how soon that destiny will be accomplished, and so as the age closes he becomes fiercer in his wrath; like a serpent which is attacked ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein

... other event in the decade of testing large nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, Castle/Bravo's unexpected contamination of 7,000 square miles of the Pacific Ocean dramatically illustrated how large-scale nuclear war could produce casualties on a colossal scale, far beyond the local effects of blast and ...
— Worldwide Effects of Nuclear War: Some Perspectives • United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency

... the first case of the attenuation of a virus by experimental methods only. Formed of a special microbe of an extreme minuteness, this virus may be multiplied by artificial culture outside the animal body. These cultures, left alone without any possible external contamination, undergo, in the course of time, modifications of their virulency to a greater or less extent. The oxygen of the atmosphere is said to be the chief cause of these attenuations—that is, this lessening of the facilities of multiplication of the ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... from feeble parents, or those which have been rendered weakly by deficiencies in the soil or faulty cultivation. Whether weakness is hereditary, or is attributable to a bad system, the fact remains that disease generally begins with unhealthy specimens, and these form centres of contamination from which the mischief spreads. It is, therefore, important that seed from healthy stocks should be sown, and that a vigorous constitution should be developed ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons

... hurriedly to her husband. She was at the moment concocting the Irish stew destined to satisfy the noonday want of fourteen young birds, let alone the parent couple. She had taken the letters from the man's hands between the folds of her capacious apron, so as to save them from the contamination of the stew, and in this guise she brought them to ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... worse," thought Linda as she slowly mounted the stairs. "Nora is anything but a pleasure in the house. At first when she came she was not quite so bad; she had a pretty face, and her manners had not been coarsened from contamination with Molly. Now she is much changed. Yes, I'll go to mother and talk to her. What an awful afternoon we are likely to have with that American girl here and Nora changing for ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade

... which is conveyed in iron pipes for drinking and domestic purposes. This supply is brought a distance of seven miles from a pure mountain stream, taken at a point among the foothills, above all danger of contamination. The pressure is sufficient to throw the water above the highest houses without the need of fire-engines, and the amount of air bubbles confined in the water gives it a most refreshing taste, but a milky appearance ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money

... to the wall. Intermarriage between the two classes of the population became abhorrent to the ruling class, and all manner of restrictions were put upon their intercourse, till even the shadow of the outcaste falling upon the Brahman brought contamination. Let us not blame the Aryan too hastily, for in South Africa and in our own Southern States we see the same denial that God has made of one blood all the races of men, and the same exclusion of the darker race from all privileges of human brotherhood. Slave-owners ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong

... detailed recommendations; and these notes were all carefully preserved for future reference. It was, besides, vital that the heir to the throne should be protected from the slightest possibility of contamination from the outside world. The Prince of Wales was not as other boys; he might, occasionally, be allowed to invite some sons of the nobility, boys of good character, to play with him in the garden of Buckingham Palace; but his father presided, with ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey

... surface are continually brought under the sway of industrialism. Vast tracts of Africa become recruiting grounds for the labor required in the gold and diamond mines of the Rand, Rhodesia, and Kimberley; for this purpose, the population is demoralized, taxed, driven into revolt, and exposed to the contamination of European vice and disease. Healthy and vigorous races from Southern Europe are tempted to America, where sweating and slum life reduce their vitality if they do not actually cause their death. What damage is done to our own urban populations by the conditions under which ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell

... His dominant trait was clearly the remnant of still earlier days, because I've never seen such staring solemnity as Fyne's except in a very young baby. But where was he all that time? Didn't he suffer contamination from the indolence of Captain Anthony, I inquired. I was told that Mr Fyne was very little at the cottage at the time. Some colleague of his was convalescing after a severe illness in a little seaside village in the neighbourhood ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad

... Aspel, whose heart was easily touched and sympathies roused by tales of sorrow. "But how comes it that she has escaped contamination?" ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne

... the "Overland Monthly"; and when a great literary light came to San Francisco to appear on the lyceum stage, Henry George was asked to introduce him to the audience, especially if the man was believed to have heresy secreted on his person, in which case of course the local clergy took no risks of contamination, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard

... What pleasure you gave to those of us, like myself of course, who appreciated your grasp of protocol. Such finesse! How subtly you appeared to ignore each overture, while neatly avoiding actual contamination. I can tell you, there were those who thought—poor fools—that you had no grasp of etiquette. How gratified we were, we professionals, who could appreciate your virtuosity—when you placed matters on a comfortable basis by spurning the cats'-meat. It was sheer pleasure then, waiting, to see what ...
— The Yillian Way • John Keith Laumer

... exhibitions of themselves as they do, in such circumstances, with such surroundings, with such speech as much often be on their lips to play the plays that are written, in such positions as they must sometimes take, affecting such sentiment and passions—how can they do this without moral contamination?" And we would ask, how can persons live enrapt with this sort of thing for hours and hours each week, the year around, and not become equally contaminated, for to the onlooker all this comes as ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy

... more, we might, we should, have been abreast of Liant by this time and increasing our distance from that contaminated shore. And it was not only the distance. It seemed to me that a stronger breeze would have blown away the contamination which clung to the ship. It obviously did cling to the ship. Two men. One burning, one shivering. I felt a distinct reluctance to go and look at them. What was the good? Poison is poison. Tropical fever is tropical fever. But that it should have stretched its claw after us over the sea seemed to ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad

... teach him. A new and exasperating thought came into his feverish consciousness. What if Van Loo, in teaching the boy, had even made use of him as an innocent accomplice to cover up his own tricks! The suggestion was no question of moral ethics to Steptoe, nor of his son's possible contamination, although since the night of the big strike he had held different views; it was simply a fierce, selfish jealousy that ANOTHER might have profited by the lad's helplessness and inexperience. He had been tormented by this jealousy before in his son's liking for Van Loo. He ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte

... they sacrificed a number of these animals to that planet. At other seasons, should any one even touch a hog, he was obliged immediately to plunge into the river Nile, as he stood, with his clothes on, in order to purify himself from the supposed contamination he had contracted by ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... Mrs. Carey returned a polite refusal. She was afraid that Philip would be corrupted by little boys from London. He was going to be a clergyman, and it was necessary that he should be preserved from contamination. She liked to see in him ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... loved was saved the contamination from which he desired to shield her. So the pristine calm of the Mission of St. Agatha was left unbroken. Father Jose was left to his snuff-box and his mission of mercy. And Kars ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum

... as far as my information goes, with little success. For want of separating, from the beginning of their confinement, the most debauched from those whom a moment of distress or error has thrown into these scenes of depravity, the contamination of bad example rapidly spreads, and those who enter dissolute, frequently come out thievish; while all timidity is banished from the mind of the more diffident. Besides, it is not always the most culpable ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... Now, good Senor, could you prevail upon the queen to limit the privileges of those infidels, and allot them a piece of ground for their own use, aloof from all public places, certainly much abomination and contamination ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... 10:2: "As the judge of the people is himself, so also are his ministers." Consequently, there can be no doubt that the wicked sin by exercising the ministry of God and the Church, by conferring the sacraments. And since this sin pertains to irreverence towards God and the contamination of holy things, as far as the man who sins is concerned, although holy things in themselves cannot be contaminated; it follows that such a sin is ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... but where he is most often to be found buried in a great book and oblivious of all else besides, this little man with the darting eyes and soft voice is now invading, with sound good sense to save him from nausea or contamination, ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie

... in spite of their previous determination to be bored. That evening they had visited the plaza with the Captain and Dick Yankton and had witnessed the dances beneath the great alamos or poplar trees that surrounded the square, braving the risk of contamination which Mrs. Forest had vainly protested would be sure to ensue should they mingle with the populace—the Mexican-Indian rabble of which it was composed—a distinction which only she and the Colonel seemed able to divine, for had it been a garlic-tainted Egyptian or Neapolitan mob, little ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown

... directly upon one of the fragments, and if the operation is performed boldly it will be found that the surface of the fragment can be fused, and the fragment thus caused to hold together before the lower side gets hot enough to suffer any contamination from the tile or brick. A second fragment may be treated in the same way, and then a third, ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall

... they swept and into the broad highway like a pair of demons, and a muleteer, seeing discretion to be the better part of valor, drove his team well to the side—far enough, even, to escape any devilish contamination which this ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... every aspect of practical benevolence; but that he preserved order and health, discouraged blasphemy, provided for the occupation of time, and prevented gambling and peculation—that he sheltered the well-disposed from the violence and contamination of the worst—and that he parted with his charge, with their ideas increased and their moral sensibility awakened—is, with all deductions, a claim to no trifling praise. Colonel Arthur, a keen observer, mentioned the general emotion which separation ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... salary as a clerk in the Post Office," said Fanny very boldly. Amaldina shook her head sadly. The Marchioness clasped her hands together and raised her eyes to the ceiling with a look of supplication. Were not her darlings to be preserved from such contamination? ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... west Natural resources: petroleum, natural gas, coal, sulphur, salt Land use: arable land: 3% permanent crops: 0% meadows and pastures: 69% forest and woodland: 0% other: 28% Irrigated land: 12,450 km2 (1990) Environment: contamination of soil and groundwater with agricultural chemicals, pesticides; salinization, water-logging of soil due to poor irrigation methods ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... tellers who heard of it. A few repetitions of the same dose to others impressed the whole crew with a conviction that nothing was to be gained by bringing such reports to me. The consequence was that although Washington is perhaps the most gossiping place in the world, I escaped its contamination altogether, and had no trouble except such as unavoidably grew out of my public duties; and although I had perhaps a more vexatious time than any of my predecessors in that respect I was the only man, they all say, who grew ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur

... was especially interested in the copy intended for the schools, but he felt that "south of the Potomac, where it is most wanted it will be least used," for, he continued, "it is a Mohammedan rule never to dispute with the ignorant, and we of the true faith in the South adjure the contamination of infidel political works. It would give our orthodox nullifyer a fever to read the heresies of your Commentaries. A whole school might be infected by the atmosphere of a single copy should it be placed on one of the shelves of ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin

... which is so seldom performed by persons even in less exalted stations than that which she occupied. Her morality was, also, unquestionably of the highest order: during the period in which she presided over the British court, she preserved it from the contamination of vice, notwithstanding the dangers proceeding from the licentious examples of other European dynasties, as well as from that moral relaxation which our own prosperity was so well calculated to produce. During the reign of Geo-ge III., indeed, England presented from the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... her. It was his rule of life to act so entirely on his own will, that he rarely consulted her on matters of any importance. As it was, he could not endure the responsibility of acting by himself. People would say of him that he had subjected his wife to contamination, and had done so without giving her any choice in the matter. So he resolved that he ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope

... should be proper or necessary to terminate intercourse with any or every other country. A statesman of former days wished that the Atlantic was a sea of fire, that it might be a barrier to shut out European contamination. Whatever fear was once justifiable, no apprehension now need to exist, that our people will imitate or seek to adopt the political theories of Europe. We have recently rejoiced in the success of the attempt to establish telegraphic communication with England; ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis

... question more curious than relevant; why salmon (a strong sapor per se) fortifieth its condition with the mighty lobster-sauce, whose embraces are fatal to the delicater relish of the turbot; why oysters in death rise up against the contamination of brown sugar, while they are posthumously amorous of vinegar; why the sour mango and the sweet jam by turns court and are accepted by the compilable mutton-hash,—she not yet decidedly declaring for either. We are ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various

... the Reverend Mr. Stokes—"I wonder when our legislature will contrive to establish a school for mothers. If girls are sent to school, the chances are that the contamination over which the teacher can have no control—the contamination of evil girls—renders them vicious; if, on the contrary, they are kept at home, the folly of their mothers makes them fools—a pretty choice!" Mr. Stokes turned down a lane that ran parallel with the garden ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... instinctive repugnance for the vulgar forms of labour. We have a realising sense of ceremonial uncleanness attaching in an especial degree to the occupations which are associated in our habits of thought with menial service. It is felt by all persons of refined taste that a spiritual contamination is inseparable from certain offices that are conventionally required of servants. Vulgar surroundings, mean (that is to say, inexpensive) habitations, and vulgarly productive occupations are unhesitatingly condemned and avoided. They are incompatible with life on a satisfactory spiritual ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen

... your children are young, and, so far, innocent. If they are to remain so, it is necessary that they be at once removed from the contamination of their present disgraceful ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... solution of glycerin and water. In this way the virus retains its virulence and putrefaction is diminished. The first method is the best, taking the head directly. The head after it reaches the laboratory is examined microscopically for "negri bodies," and if there is no contamination the microscopic findings are verified by animal inoculations. The presence of negri bodies in a specimen is of great value owing to the rapidity with which a diagnosis can be made. In one case a positive diagnosis was reported within twenty minutes after the specimen entered the ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... wrong. With her Utopias ending in blind alleys, or issues unforeseen: with her sages discovered to be less sages than they seemed: with her Science turning superstitious, her Literature wallowing in the gutter, and her women descending from the pedestal of sex to play the virago in the contamination of the crowd: with so many other things, not here to be considered, to raise a doubt, whether this Liberty is taking her just where she wished to go, what wonder if even Europe should begin to meditate on means ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown

... The struggle is inspiring, the strife is intoxicating while it is on, but how hollow the successes except for you! My life and all its activities are centred about this one inmost shrine in which I mean to keep you, unsullied by even the implied contamination which these blackmailers would bring upon you. I will fight them with their own weapons, and, thank God, I can ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt

... that has taken place in the last decade. The protests against this State creation of hate grow less and less as the war proceeds. To-day only comparatively few members of the Social-Democrat Party raise objection to this horrible contamination of the minds of the coming generation of German men and women. Not much reflection is needed to see on what fruitful soil the great National Liberal Party, with its backing of capitalists, greedy merchants, chemists, bankers, ship ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin

... few days thereafter camp was moved over beyond the top of Missionary Ridge, about Oct. 23rd into a woodland location, with plenty of spring and creek water nearby. To soldiers in camp a living spring was a blessing, as it was the only security against contamination ...
— A History of Lumsden's Battery, C.S.A. • George Little

... generally is such a sorry mixture of humanity. The good and the bad, the intelligent and the ignorant, the feeble-minded and the strong, the criminal and the righteous, have been combined so frequently and in so many ways that the marvel is that more of the human race are not degenerate as the result of contamination. Since the great characteristic of heredity is to breed true and thus perpetuate its kind, and since training and education must take the individual as he is, with only limited power to change his intrinsic nature or to ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall

... father, and smiling: "I am not sure that I could speak so charitably of that man." A sigh quickly followed her smile, and I now recollected having heard or read that this painter bore such an antipathy to the Jews, that he considered every touch of theirs as contamination; and, if he accidentally came in contact with them, would cast off and give away his clothes, forbidding the servant to whom he gave them, on any account to ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth

... was the advocate in this House of very opposite opinions? I not only quarrel with his present sentiments, Sir, but I declare very frankly I do not like the party with which he acts. If his own motives were as pure as possible, they cannot but suffer contamination from those with whom he is politically associated. This measure may be a boon to the constitution, but I will accept no favour to the constitution from such hands. (Loud cries of hear! hear!) I profess myself, Sir, an honest and ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell

... we should certainly forbear the experiment: it would be far better for a young man never to be acquainted with a single heathen deity, than to purchase Lord Chesterfield's classical knowledge at the hazard of contamination from his detestable system of morals. Without his Lordship's assistance, Mrs. Monsigny's Mythology can properly initiate the young pupil of either sex into the mysteries of ancient fables. The notes to Potter's ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth

... four or five weeks, and the man who milks or attends upon them is not permitted to touch, nor, indeed, to come near, any of the cows in the great pasture. Such is the susceptibility of a cow to the least contamination, that if one who had any slight disease were admitted among the herd, in a very short time the whole of them would be affected. When the proprietor has been to purchase fresh stock, and been much among strange cows, especially at Smithfield, he invariably changes all his clothes, and, generally ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... off through the jungle, the old woman yelled. The cry brought the others, and when Piang caught sight of them, he almost lost hope. Would he be able to escape the contamination of this island? With mad shrieks, the lepers gave chase, eager to lay hands on one so lately relegated to their colony. Was he not a leper too? What right had he to scorn them, his brothers? Hotter, fiercer grew the chase. The island was so small that it afforded little refuge ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart

... perform painful experiments on himself in order to furnish the proof of his theory; and he explains thus the curious cases of dermatitis which are often observed among silkworm-breeders. (7/20.) He proves the uselessness of our meat-safes of metallic gauze, intended to preserve meat against contamination, and the efficacy of a mere envelope of paper, not only to preserve meat from flies, but also our garments from the clothes-moth. (7/21.) He recommends the curious Provenal recipe, which consists in boiling ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros

... he runs barefoot across the beach to have a swim, he will tread where an elephantiasis case trod a few minutes before. If he closets himself in his own house, yet every bit of fresh food on his table will have been subjected to the contamination, be it flesh, fish, fowl, or vegetable. In the public market at Papeete two known lepers run stalls, and heaven alone knows through what channels arrive at that market the daily supplies of fish, fruit, meat, and vegetables. The only happy way to ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London

... plant it produces will not be a healthy one and it will only be after a long series of transplantings, with patience and care, that at length a really sound plant will be obtained. The same principle holds good in regard to the human plant. It is hard to offset an evil ancestry. The contamination goes on from generation to generation, just as in the case of the notorious Juke family which cost New York State hundreds of thousands of dollars in consequence of criminality and idiocy. It requires almost a miracle to divert an individual sprung from a corrupt stem ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing

... senses would do a thing like that! Not even Captain Leavenworth would stoop to that, she thought. Poor child! She knew so little of the world, and her world had been kept so sweet and pure and free from contamination. She turned cold at the thought of her father's anger if he should hear about this strange young man. She felt sure he would blame her for allowing it. He had tried to teach his girls that they must exercise judgment and discretion, and surely, surely, she must have failed in both ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... 'knower,' then who is it that is spoken of as 'knowing'? If there is knowledge and no person, then the subject of knowledge may be a stone or a log; moreover, to have clear knowledge of these minute causes of contamination and reject them thoroughly, these being so rejected, there must be an end, then, of the 'doer.' What Arada has declared cannot satisfy my heart. This clear knowledge is not universal wisdom, I must go on and seek ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... the impress of every stamp of depravity in the mint of vice was soon well beyond the reach of any possible redemption in contact with the moral vileness of the prisons on what was, but for their contamination, one of the loveliest ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... correct Englishwoman, upon whom British fiction depended for its respectability, who wanted to send her young hero from the English provinces to the Chat Noir in the course of a rake's progress, and who avoided facing the contamination herself by shifting to her husband the task of collecting the necessary local colour on the spot. She did well, for had she gone she could not have been so scandalized as the young Briton in her book was obliged to be for the sake of the story. Those who had eyes and ears for it could ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... able to convey the information that his name was Paul of Nicopolis, that he was a Greek citizen, and that he also had come out into the desert for the saving of his soul, and to escape from the contamination ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... we had a mutiny among the general practitioners. If I had the use of half the funds which the Association has, I should spend part of them in drain-blocking, and the rest in the cultivation of disease germs, and the contamination of drinking water." ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro

... the contempt and hate felt by the Southron towards the Yankee anterior to our Civil War and while it was in progress. No Houyhnhnms ever looked on Yahoo with greater aversion; better, far better death than further contamination through political association."—C. F. ADAMS, Trans-Atlantic Historical Solidarity, ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve

... evaporation; but solutions which are boiled upon the hot plate, or from which gases are escaping, should invariably be covered. In any case a watch-glass may be supported above the vessel by means of a glass triangle, or other similar device, and the danger of loss of material or contamination by dust thus be avoided. It is obvious that evaporation is promoted by the use of vessels which admit of the exposure of a broad surface to ...
— An Introductory Course of Quantitative Chemical Analysis - With Explanatory Notes • Henry P. Talbot

... Austin," she cried; "don't approach me. There is contamination in me. I am no fit associate for an honest man. Don't ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... by a mule than let any yaller heathen sit next to me," remarked Jim Brown, whose education and refinement made him sensitive to such social contamination. ...
— Ben's Nugget - A Boy's Search For Fortune • Horatio, Jr. Alger

... the brave William of Orange set his breast, undaunted and unflinching. Of all the conspicuous men in the land, he was the only one whose worst enemy had never hinted through the whole course of his public career, that his hands had known contamination. His honor was ever untarnished by even a breath of suspicion. The Cardinal could accuse him of pecuniary embarrassment, by which a large proportion of his revenues were necessarily diverted to the liquidation of his debts, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... justifiable. All his life he had shunned the contemplation of poverty and distress. He was now for the first time seeing sickness and suffering in surroundings that had nothing of refinement, and he shrank, like the sensitive and selfish creature that he was, from such contamination. ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King

... these baths should be of a light tint, and there should always be more or less pure white. Nothing really is better than plain white glazed bricks, with neat joints. With this bottom the water always looks clean when it is clean, and shows contamination when it exists. Marble-mosaic floorings should be chiefly of white tesserae, any simple patterns being executed in light tints. Delicate tints, such as strawberry, pea green, and peacock blue, look well through the water. The floor of ...
— The Turkish Bath - Its Design and Construction • Robert Owen Allsop

... we find either weak imitation or repetition of the myths of other peoples (though this must not be confused with certain elements which seem to be common to the myths of all races), or concoction, contamination, or "genealogical tree-making," or myths originated by "leisurely, peaceful tradition" and lacking the essential qualities which appeal to the human soul and make their possessors very careful to preserve them among their ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner

... approximately the same position. Sir John French spoke of it, and the British are providing a system of sterilised water for their men. Merely providing so many human beings with water is a tremendous problem. Along part of the line, quite aside from typhoid contamination, the water is now impregnated with salt water from the sea. If even wells contain dead bodies, how about the open water-courses? Wounded men must have water. It is their ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... darkness, mingling with the stagnant, damp air that came in at the open window, fairly saturating her with horror: it seemed the very essence of degradation. But as she lay on the edge of the bed, shrinking from contamination, in the throes of excitement inspired by an unnamed fear, she grew hot, she could feel and almost hear the pounding of her heart. She rose, felt around in the clammy darkness for her wrapper and slippers, gained the door, crept ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... thorium. Thorium is radioactive. I won't give you a lecture on radioactivity, Foster. But thorium mostly gives off the kind of radiation known as alpha particles. Alpha is not dangerous unless breathed or eaten. It won't go through clothes or skin. But when mixed with fine carbon, thorium alpha contamination makes a mess. It's a dirty mess, Foster—so dirty that I don't want my ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin

... been known that the Yellow River is neither more nor less than a prolongation of the Milky Way, soiled by earthly contact and contamination, and that the homes of the Spinning Maiden and the Cow-herd are the centres of two of the numerous villages that adorn its banks. It is not to be wondered at, however, that in an evil and skeptical world there should be many who ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland

... so much that. But the fine intellectual superiority of the continuous performance is beginning to suffer contamination from the plays where there are waits between the acts. I spoke just now of the tramp magician, but I see him no longer at the variety houses. The comic musician is of the rarest occurrence; during the whole season I have as yet heard ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells

... this last he might not have been so successful but for his brother's assistance; for, though choosing his own associates from among the dissolute and vile, Arthur resolutely exerted himself to preserve this young brother from such contamination. "I've enough sins of my own to answer for, Wal," he would say, sometimes almost fiercely, "and I won't have any of yours added to 'em; nobody shall say I led you into bad company, or initiated you into ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley

... the sensible mortifications which Falstaff is made to bring upon himself? What are the blows and buffetings which the Don receives from the staves of the Yanguesian carriers or from Sancho Panza's more hard-hearted hands, compared with the contamination of the buck-basket, the disguise of the fat woman of Brentford, and the horns of Herne the hunter, which are discovered on Sir John's head? In reading the play, we indeed wish him well through all these discomfitures, ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... your wife from this corruption which (bad as I supposed it to be) I find still worse than I thought. Here, it is not the men who invite the women, but the women who invite the men. If you were here, you could not escape contamination without ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... merciful. THIS BROTHER MARY GAVE TO YOU. But, perhaps, even in Him you fear the divine Majesty, because, although He was made man, yet He remained God. You wish to have an advocate even to Him. Betake yourself to Mary. For, in Mary is pure humanity, not only pure from all contamination, but pure also by the singleness of her nature[136]. Nor should I, with any doubt say, she too will be heard for her own reverence-sake. The Son, surely, will hear the Mother, and the Father ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler

... same, when he was interrupted by the sound of laughter, and of numerous, loud, and mingled voices, coming along the gallery that led to the drawing-room. As if these were signals for her departure, and as if she dreaded the intrusion and contamination of the revel rout, Lady Glistonbury arose, looked at her watch, pronounced her belief that it was full time for her to go to dress, and retired through a Venetian door, followed by Miss Strictland, repeating the same belief, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth

... second Blow to the whole infernal Body; but as if they had resolved to let that alone, Satan went on with his Business; and as he had introduc'd Crime into the common Parent of Mankind, and thereby secured the Contamination of Blood, and the Descent or Propagation of the corrupt Seed, he had nothing to do but to assist Nature in time to come, to carry on its own Rebellion, and act it self in the Breasts of Eve's tainted Posterity; and that indeed has been the Devil's Business ever since his first Victory upon ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

... humanitarian. For the second was distinctly mercenary. But then Skippy lived in a materialistic age and Skippy's father owned a department store. Yet the practical and profitable possibilities did not proceed from any inward contamination of the generous impulse of invention, but from contact and suggestion. At Bill Appleby's, where he wandered in hungrily, in a desperate hope of meeting some friend whose memory could be jogged by reference to past favors, he perceived the celebrated ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson

... at her in silence, with compassionate wonder. But for the words in which she had accosted him, it would have been impossible to associate her with the lamentable life that she led. The appearance of the girl was artlessly virginal and innocent; she looked as if she had passed through the contamination of the streets without being touched by it, without fearing it, or feeling it, or understanding it. Robed in pure white, with her gentle blue eyes raised to heaven, a painter might have shown her on his canvas as a saint or an ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins

... closer to Anna's side, occasionally casting a timid glance toward the dark-browed girl who followed them. In the upper hall they met with Carrie, who in passing 'Lena held back her dress, as if fearing contamination from a contact with her cousin's plainer garments. Painfully alive to the slightest insult, 'Lena reddened, while Anna said, "Never mind—that's just like Cad, but nobody ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes

... had deeper misgivings. It seemed to her rather to be a rebuke for the whole habit of life than a warning against an individual, and she began to doubt whether even the seclusion of the west wing had been a sufficient protection in the eyes of the family from the contamination of such society as Mervyn received. Or was it a plot of Lady Acton's malevolence for hunting Phoebe away from her home? Miss Fennimore fell asleep, uneasy and perplexed, and in her dreams beheld Phoebe as the Lady in Comus, fixed in her chair and resolute against a cup effervescing with carbonic ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... accomplished, through what villainy, made no odds—she was his wife, and could only be released through process of law. He could claim her, hold her in spite of me, in spite of herself. No influence I might bring to bear would save her now from this contamination. It would all be useless, a thing for laughter. Her signature—of which Kirby had boasted—and the certificate signed by the dead Gaskins, would offset any possible efforts I might put forth. There remained no hope except through flight; outdistancing our pursuers; ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish

... persons so privileged, that although they live distinctly within a provincial town, there is accorded to them, as though by brevet rank, all the merit of living in the county. In reference to persons so privileged, it is considered that they have been made free from the contamination of contiguous bricks and mortar by certain inner gifts, probably of birth, occasionally of profession, possibly of merit. It is very rarely, indeed, that money alone will bestow this acknowledged rank; and in Exeter, which by the stringency and excellence of ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... observe them. Not beautiful and lofty ideals only, but the power to translate them into the daily practice of common lives. Not merely the glorious examples of a pure faith, but the actual force which enables men to live by that faith amid the littleness, the depression, the contamination, and the conflict of ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth

... contamination may lead its victim to wash and rewash his hands at every contact with matter, until finally, though they are raw and sore, he is ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter

... crossed the hall quickly lest I should be tempted to say more, and in me was a disagreeable sensation as though I had just left the Incurable Ward of some great hospital. A reaction caught me as of nausea. Ugh! I wanted such people cleansed by fire. They seemed to me as centers of contamination whose vicious thoughts flowed out to stain God's glorious world. I saw myself, Frances, Mabel too especially, on the rack, while that odious figure of cruelty and darkness stood over us and ordered ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood

... distressed at the venture on which his daughter's savings had gone; but he was perfectly happy and triumphant now, except that, even more than Mrs. Morton, he suffered from the idea of the Honourable Michael being exposed to the contamination of a workhouse, and was shocked at his Lordship's thinking it would have been worse for him to be with the Rattler. Then, hastily looking at his watch, Lord Northmoor asked when the post went out, and hearing there was but half an hour to spare, ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge

... courses of a Thug's daughter; a marriage in a Thug's family; a death of any member of his family except an infant at the breast; circumcision of a boy; a buffalo or cow giving calf or dying; and a cat or dog giving a litter or dying. If a party fell under the Itak or contamination at a time when it was extremely inconvenient or impossible to return home, they sometimes marched back for a few miles and slept the night, making a fresh start in the morning, and this was considered equivalent to beginning a new journey after getting rid of the contamination. ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... to health provided the drug be pure, it is commonly adulterated with red lead and ochre. Several instances are on record that Gloucester and other cheeses have been found contaminated with red lead, through having been coloured with anotta containing it, and that this contamination has produced serious consequences. ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field

... I said, and, boiling with anger underneath, I quietly took the paper out of her hand between the tips of my thumb and first finger (as if the contamination of her touch had made it unclean) and carried it to the fire and ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... willingness to make amends, he could claim no rights or privileges of communion in the Church. Continued association with the unrepentant sinner may involve the spread of his disaffection, and the contamination of others through his sin. Justice is not to be dethroned by Mercy. The revealed order of discipline in the restored Church is similar to that given ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... established institutions of those [the revolted] States; but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to preserve the Union with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired." After the example of the Constitution, this resolution was carefully saved from the contamination of a certain offensive word; but every one knew its meaning and its purpose; and with this knowledge all the votes save two in the House of Representatives, and all save five in the Senate, were given for it.[1] "It ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse

... their mouths lest their breath should pollute the offering. Numerous were the special festivals, observed simply for purification. Salt also was commonly used to sprinkle over the ground, and those who attended a funeral must free themselves from contamination by the use of salt.[28] Purification by water was habitual and in varied forms. The ancient emperors and priests actually performed the ablution of the people or made ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis

... that woman; she will have imbibed her Popish vanities!" exclaimed the poor clergyman, almost ready to start up and separate Oil-of-Gladness at once from the contamination. ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... to an imposture, to the trick of a juggler? but it surely would be a cause of wonder, if, with such leprous members, the sound and respectable body of its professors should escape the suspicion of partaking their contamination. ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston

... of Buxton is abundant, soft, and free from impurities, doubtless owing to its percolating through the great filter bed of sandstone to the north of the town, and issues in numerous springs far above any source of contamination from the inhabitants in the ...
— Buxton and its Medicinal Waters • Robert Ottiwell Gifford-Bennet

... horrible penalty of losing caste, and becoming forsaken and despised of every creature, even the nearest kindred. The mere eating from a vessel used to contain food for a person of a different caste is enough to produce contamination; the separation is complete, and the whole constitution of body and mind have become so inured to the distinction, that the cost of becoming a convert is infinitely severer in India than ever it could have been even ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... obedience before and after. Besides, with such a natural outlet for repressed instincts, their ebullition at the wrong time is not so apt to occur. Many principals object to recesses because of the moral contamination for which those periods are often responsible. The author has had repeated and convincing testimony of the efficacy of games to do away with this objection. The game becomes the one absorbing interest of recess, ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft

... my cousin would seem to be no laggard in love, and as to the Prince—his glance is contamination to ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol

... Solomon's time, but has an answer been found? No! It was only when Jesus met the woman at the well did a new life open up for our unfortunate sisters. I plead with you do not draw away your skirts for fear of contamination. Remember, the Master Himself allowed a fallen woman to wash His feet with her tears and wipe them with the hairs of her head. It was a fallen woman who was first to see the omissions and deficiencies of hospitality forgotten ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various

... him and gossip and talk evil of people. . . . The masses, always inclined to anthropomorphism in religion and morals, like best of all the little gods who have the same weaknesses as themselves. Only think what a wide field he has for contamination! Besides, he is not a bad actor and is a clever hypocrite, and knows very well how to twist things round. Only take his little shifts and dodges, his attitude to civilisation, for instance. He has scarcely sniffed ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov



Words linked to "Contamination" :   dirtying, contaminate, soilure, impurity, taint, contaminant, dust contamination, impureness, pollution, stuff, decontamination, material, soiling



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