How to Use vitiate in a Sentence

vitiate

verb
  • The impact of the film was vitiated by poor acting.
  • Such words are verbal roadblocks that not only vitiate the meaning of your message but worse, obscure its clarity.
    — Jerry Weissman, Forbes.com, 23 Apr. 2025
  • Failure to do that can potentially vitiate or at least impair coverage.
    — Joshua Stein, Forbes, 9 Nov. 2021
  • Accepting the plaintiffs’ claims in Jesner would vitiate limits that the Supreme Court has imposed on the law.
    — The Editorial Board, WSJ, 10 Oct. 2017
  • This obduracy vitiates Congress’ role in the system of checks and balances, one purpose of which is to restrain rampant presidents.
    — George Will, Twin Cities, 29 Sep. 2019
  • But none of that vitiates the correctness of her larger critique of what’s happening on the right-wing media landscape and how that is affecting national politics.
    — David Zurawik, baltimoresun.com, 15 Sep. 2017
  • Older now, and vitiated by the injuries sustained during the attempt on his life, Sliwa was nonetheless imposing.
    — Kent Russell, Harper's Magazine, 28 Feb. 2025
  • Millennials have allied with Gen Z, and managed to vitiate the meme in the process by, basically, overdoing it.
    — Molly Roberts, The Denver Post, 7 Nov. 2019
  • The climate effects of such wanton deforestation will partially vitiate any environmental gains from the collapse in ground and air transport this spring.
    — Troy Vettese, The New Republic, 31 July 2020
  • The practical effect of this opinion is to vitiate risk pools as a method for small captive insurance companies to meet the risk distribution requirements for tax purposes.
    — Jay Adkisson, Forbes, 13 May 2022
  • The bill vitiates the existing legal agreements between the parties as to the calculation of re-setting of the ground lease rent and removes all leverage in negotiations.
    — Anita W. Laremont, New York Daily News, 14 May 2024
  • By forbidding all comparison, this more expansive meaning is vitiated.
    — Peter E. Gordon, The New York Review of Books, 7 Jan. 2020
  • But vitiating dual sovereignty by judicial fiat would reshape America’s legal system in ways that are best left to the political branches.
    — The Editorial Board, WSJ, 5 Dec. 2018
  • Instead, put money into positive programs — head start, mentoring, teacher training – something that doesn’t vitiate the education process.
    — Letters To The Editor, The Mercury News, 17 Sep. 2019
  • Every pardon undercuts a prior judicial decision and vitiates a court’s judgment that the defendant violated a criminal statute and ought to be punished.
    — Frank Bowman, Slate Magazine, 26 Aug. 2017
  • The fact that the three bullets that struck Hernandez were fired from the driver’s side of the car does not alter any of my conclusions and does not vitiate the legal justifications of acting in self-defense or defense of another.
    — Kieran Nicholson, The Denver Post, 23 Jan. 2017
  • The conspiracy argument is an attempt to vitiate Eastman's attorney-client privilege defense.
    — Stephen Collinson, CNN, 4 Mar. 2022
  • Because labor law only governs things like forming a union and organizing for better wages, anything out of that ambit, like going to court as a class, doesn’t vitiate the workers’ individual arbitration agreements.
    — Cristian Farias, Daily Intelligencer, 21 May 2018
  • Without question this violates the letter and spirit of the Constitution’s Takings Clause, as well as prior precedent, and vitiates the rights of property owners.
    — WSJ, 5 July 2017
  • Pruitt, however, has issued rules that greatly vitiate TSCA’s ability to monitor and regulate the use of chemicals.
    — Alexander Nazaryan, Newsweek, 8 Feb. 2018
  • The possibility of abuse does not vitiate the need, demonstrated over the course of centuries, for pardoning as both a remedy for problems within the criminal justice system and as a force for societal reconciliation.
    — Bernadette Meyler, Harpers Magazine, 27 Jan. 2026
  • Although Gansmann essentially vitiated the childhood of a 6-year-old, expression of sympathy to a survivor, decades after the fact, is philosophical and abstract, though well-intentioned.
    — David McGrath, Twin Cities, 11 June 2017
  • If the legitimacy of his actions is deemed vitiated by a potentially corrupt intent to impede the investigation, then his communications facilitate a crime and are not privileged.
    — Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review, 17 Sep. 2019
  • Nothing is said about the former president himself, but applying these general criminal statutes to him based on his mere possession of records would vitiate the entire carefully balanced PRA statutory scheme.
    — David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey, WSJ, 22 Aug. 2022
  • Brazil’s and Colombia’s efforts to mediate between Maduro’s government and the opposition have floundered, and their desire to appear neutral in the name of dialogue has vitiated their ability to act on principle.
    — Christopher Sabatini, Foreign Affairs, 9 Oct. 2024
  • His arguments were later challenged by critics who argued that new information and communication technologies vitiated the advantages of corporate size and hierarchical control.
    — Barry Eichengreen, Foreign Affairs, 6 Sep. 2022
  • That would vitiate the executive branch’s coequal status and, when combined with Congress’s impeachment power, establish legislative supremacy—a result the Framers particularly feared.
    — David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey, WSJ, 10 Dec. 2017
  • Progressive commitments to reproductive rights, environmental protections, workers’ rights, racial equality, and so much more are either vindicated or vitiated at the Supreme Court.
    — Neil S. Siegel, Slate Magazine, 1 Feb. 2017
  • The vertiginous composition incorporates tropes of Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism, which, having become second nature to Howe, hardly vitiate the intensity of this particular religious rapture.
    — Peter Schjeldahl, The New Yorker, 4 July 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'vitiate.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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