blighted

UK/ˈblaɪtɪd/US/ˈblaɪtɪd/

adjectiveC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,625 of 15,258neutral

Blighted means spoiled or ruined by some harmful influence. A blighted crop, blighted lives, a blighted neighbourhood.

The literal sense is agricultural: blight is a disease that kills a crop where it stands, and potato blight caused the Irish famine. The figurative use keeps that sense of something arriving from outside and ruining what was growing.

Definitions of blighted

1adjectiveblightedSpoiled or ruined by some harmful influence.C1
“The town was blighted by unemployment after the factory closed.”

blighted is a quality of ruin.

Where it comes from

From blight + -ed.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

blighted in the wild

A blighted ovum cannot result in a viable pregnancy.
Blighted ovum
Formerly, Trosterud was one of the more blighted and unattractive stations in the east.
Trosterud (station)
On May 12, 2005, a commercial block in Angora was certified as blighted by the City Planning Commission, and a redevelopment plan was proposed later that year.
Angora, Philadelphia
Poor patronage was a factor in the closure of the line and Compton Halt's existence was similarly blighted.
Compton Halt railway station
The title was won by Marvyn Cox but the meeting was blighted by the death of Leif Wahlman.
1984 Individual Speedway Junior European Championship

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

blight

← Vocabulary