inficiate

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inficiate

/ɪnˈfɪʃiˌeɪt/ US, UK

Where it comes from

Borrowed from Italian inficiare + English -ate (suffix forming verbs), from Medieval Latin īnficior, alteration of Classical Latin īnfitior (“to deny, contradict”), from *īnfitiae (“denial”) (see īnfitiās eō), from fateor (“to admit, acknowledge”).

Presumably originally a mistranslation by Italian speakers; compare aprimorate (“to elevate, improve”), taken from Portuguese in a similar manner.

Earlier mentions of the word in Randle Cotgrave and Henry Cockeram's Early Modern English dictionaries are likely unconnected to the modern borrowing from Italian.

verb inficiates · inficiating · inficiated

transitive To render or demonstrate to be invalid; to invalidate or disprove. This logical contradiction which therefore inficiates the validity of a notion can have two aspects: either the notion reached by our argument is uncertain, that is it is not the only one which may be derived as a conclusion from our syllogism and then we have the aniścita or it is a petitio princip
Similar: invalidate, disprove

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MLA

"inficiate." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/inficiate. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

inficiate. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/inficiate

Chicago

"inficiate." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/inficiate.

BibTeX

@misc{inficiate_2026,
  title = {inficiate},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/inficiate},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}