- infected, contaminated, corrupted, or spoiled:An outbreak of salmonella poisoning linked to eating tainted ground turkey has resulted in several deaths.
- affected by a trace of something bad, offensive, or harmful:We strongly urge you to distance your charitable organization from this discredited project and its tainted money.
- (of the name, reputation, etc., of a person or group) sullied or tarnished:Having such a program available to these students could help fix the tainted reputation many feel our school has earned.
- the simple past tense and past participle of taint1.
