Other forms: maculated, maculation
Maculate means marked with spots or stains — not clean, not pure. If it looks like a word you half know, that is because you know its opposite: immaculate is this word with not on the front.
Almost nobody says it. Immaculate is common; maculate is the rare twin that English kept only in two corners. Biologists use it in species names — the maculate lancer, the maculate panray — where it simply means spotted. Writers use it of reputations and consciences, where it means stained. Outside those two places, say spotted or stained and be understood.
1adjectivemaculateMarked with spots; spotted.~96%
“The maculate wings of the moth vanish against the bark.”
technical in this meaning — an editor’s judgement
synonyms: spotted, speckled
2adjectiveblemishedStained or impure; morally blemished.~2%
“He came to office with a maculate record and no intention of explaining it.”
dated in this meaning — an editor’s judgement
synonyms: stained, blemished
3verbrareTo stain or spot something. Rare, and old.~2%
“Time had maculated the plaster.”
dated in this meaning — an editor’s judgement
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 11 sentences found in the wild and placed 7 of them on a sense (4 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
im-MACULATE → MACULATE, with the "not" taken off
A white shirt straight off the hanger: immaculate. Now take the im- away, and it is the same shirt after the tomato sauce.
hooks ontoimmaculate
Latin macula, a spot — the same spot that gives us immaculate, which is simply this word with im- meaning not in front of it. Learn one and you have both, in opposite directions.
Latin
maculātus
Middle English
maculaten — to spoil, polute
English, today
maculate
Built from
First attested during the last quarter of the 15th century, in Middle English; Middle English maculaten (“to spoil, polute”), borrowed from Latin maculātus, perfect passive participle of maculō (“to spot”), see -ate and -ate.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA