CORRUPTION

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does corruption mean? 

• CORRUPTION (noun)
  The noun CORRUPTION has 6 senses:

1. lack of integrity or honesty (especially susceptibility to bribery); use of a position of trust for dishonest gain

2. in a state of progressive putrefaction

3. decay of matter (as by rot or oxidation)

4. moral perversion; impairment of virtue and moral principles

5. destroying someone's (or some group's) honesty or loyalty; undermining moral integrity

6. inducement (as of a public official) by improper means (as bribery) to violate duty (as by commiting a felony)

  Familiarity information: CORRUPTION used as a noun is common.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CORRUPTION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Lack of integrity or honesty (especially susceptibility to bribery); use of a position of trust for dishonest gain

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

corruption; corruptness

Hypernyms ("corruption" is a kind of...):

dishonesty (the quality of being dishonest)

Attribute:

corrupt (lacking in integrity)

incorrupt (free of corruption or immorality)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "corruption"):

infection (moral corruption or contamination)

venality (prostitution of talents or offices or services for reward)

jobbery (corruptness among public officials)

Sense 2

Meaning:

In a state of progressive putrefaction

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

corruption; putrescence; putridness; rottenness

Hypernyms ("corruption" is a kind of...):

putrefaction; rot (a state of decay usually accompanied by an offensive odor)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Decay of matter (as by rot or oxidation)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural processes

Hypernyms ("corruption" is a kind of...):

decay (the process of gradually becoming inferior)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Moral perversion; impairment of virtue and moral principles

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

corruption; degeneracy; depravation; depravity; putrefaction

Context example:

Rome had fallen into moral putrefaction

Hypernyms ("corruption" is a kind of...):

immorality (the quality of not being in accord with standards of right or good conduct)

Sense 5

Meaning:

Destroying someone's (or some group's) honesty or loyalty; undermining moral integrity

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

corruption; subversion

Context example:

the big city's subversion of rural innocence

Hypernyms ("corruption" is a kind of...):

debasement; degradation (changing to a lower state (a less respected state))

Derivation:

corrupt (corrupt morally or by intemperance or sensuality)

Sense 6

Meaning:

Inducement (as of a public official) by improper means (as bribery) to violate duty (as by commiting a felony)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Context example:

he was held on charges of corruption and racketeering

Hypernyms ("corruption" is a kind of...):

inducement; inducing (act of bringing about a desired result)

 Context examples 

Lap, in the old obsolete language, signifies high; and untuh, a governor; from which they say, by corruption, was derived Laputa, from Lapuntuh.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I became acquainted with the science of anatomy, but this was not sufficient; I must also observe the natural decay and corruption of the human body.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

“Shall I demonstrate your own ignorance? What do you know, pray, of Tapanuli fever? What do you know of the black Formosa corruption?”

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“Don't. I know she's a naughty, mischief-making old thing! Don't let her come here, Doady!” which was a corruption of David.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

She would not betray her trust, I suppose, without bribery and corruption, for she really did know where her friend was to be found.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

A computed value which depends on the contents of a block of data and which is transmitted or stored along with the data in order to detect corruption of the data.

(Checksum, NCI Thesaurus)

The estate is called Carfax, no doubt a corruption of the old Quatre Face, as the house is four-sided, agreeing with the cardinal points of the compass.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

By a gentleman of fortune they plainly meant neither more nor less than a common pirate, and the little scene that I had overheard was the last act in the corruption of one of the honest hands—perhaps of the last one left aboard.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Eliza and Georgiana, evidently acting according to orders, spoke to me as little as possible: John thrust his tongue in his cheek whenever he saw me, and once attempted chastisement; but as I instantly turned against him, roused by the same sentiment of deep ire and desperate revolt which had stirred my corruption before, he thought it better to desist, and ran from me tittering execrations, and vowing I had burst his nose.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

And I shall know that I must die, at sea most likely, cease crawling of myself to be all a-crawl with the corruption of the sea; to be fed upon, to be carrion, to yield up all the strength and movement of my muscles that it may become strength and movement in fin and scale and the guts of fishes.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)