Verb

(vitiat)

to spoil, make faulty; to reduce the value, quality, or effectiveness of something

*1851 ,

There was excellent blood in his veins—royal stuff; though sadly vitiated , I fear, by the cannibal propensity he nourished in his untutored youth.

* 1997': ‘Mr Rose,’ says the Physician, ‘this man was brought to us from Russia. Precisely such a case of '''vitiated judgment as I describe at length in my Treatise on Madness. Mayhap you have read it?’ — Andrew Miller, ''Ingenious Pain

to debase or morally corrupt

*1890 , Leo Tolstoy,

*:The robber does not intentionally vitiate people, but the governments, to accomplish their ends, vitiate whole generations from childhood to manhood with false religions and patriotic instruction.

(archaic) to violate, to rape

* 1965': ‘Crush the cockatrice,’ he groaned, from his death-cell. ‘I am dead in law’ – but of the girl he denied that he had ‘attempted to '''vitiate her at Nine years old’; for ‘upon the word of a dying man, both her Eyes did see, and her Hands did act in all that was done’. — John Fowles, ''The Magus

to make something ineffective, to invalidate

*{{quote-book

, author = , title = , year = 1734 , page = 78 , passage = ...all the hinges of the animal frame are subverted, every animal function is vitiated ; the carcass retains but just life enough to make it capable of suffering. }}

Verb

(es)

(obsolete, or, archaic) To seize and carry away by violence; to snatch by force.

To transport with joy or delight; to delight to ecstasy.

* {{quote-book

, year=1873 , author=Jules Verne , title=Around the World in 80 Days , chapter=9 citation , passage=Passepartout was ravished to behold this celebrated place, and thought that, with its circular walls and dismantled fort, it looked like an immense coffee-cup and saucer.}}

To rape.

* {{quote-book

, year=1759 , author=Voltaire , title=Candide , chapter=8 citation , passage=A tall Bulgarian soldier, six feet high, perceiving that I had fainted away at this sight, attempted to ravish me; the operation brought me to my senses. I cried, I struggled, I bit, I scratched, I would have torn the tall Bulgarian’s eyes out, not knowing that what had happened at my father’s castle was a customary thing.}}

* 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , III.x:

For loe that Guest would beare her forcibly, / And meant to ravish her, that rather had to dy.