tarnished 1 of 2

tarnished

2 of 2

verb

past tense of tarnish

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for tarnished
Adjective
  • And overall, many of the top-20-caliber players are unpolished prospects who will be drafted more for potential than production.
    Barry Jackson, Miami Herald, 5 Mar. 2025
  • As for the love story at the heart of things, real-life singer-songwriters Koerner and Varga, both making their movie debuts, inhabit their roles with unpolished sincerity, if not technical skill.
    Joe Leydon, Variety, 25 Feb. 2025
Verb
  • But others argue these budget controls are ensuring Connecticut won’t return to the 2010s, a decade marred by frequent annual deficits and some of the largest tax hikes in state history.
    Keith M. Phaneuf, Hartford Courant, 4 Jan. 2025
  • The couple welcomed two children, True, 6, and Tatum, 2, but their romance was marred by Thompson's multiple cheating scandals.
    Dan Perry, Newsweek, 4 Jan. 2025
Verb
  • Amazon objected to the 2022 warehouse election results, alleging the Amazon Labor Union and the federal labor board had tainted the vote.
    CBS News, CBS News, 23 Dec. 2024
  • Some see all Russians and their cultural heritage as irredeemably tainted by imperial thinking, a view heavily influenced by post-colonial studies in American academia.
    Andrew Higgins, New York Times, 22 Dec. 2024
Adjective
  • At a dingy desk with the help of a couple of oddball objects (Amy Rubin did the Expressionist zigzag of a set and Forest Entsminger the zany props), Mellor’s witness is describing a play to us.
    Sara Holdren, Vulture, 23 Feb. 2025
  • The musical is named after an infamous club night that Bowery hosted, which opened in 1985 on a dingy corner of London’s Leicester Square.
    Tom Faber, New York Times, 22 Feb. 2025
Verb
  • Drugs, success, and conflicting personalities had poisoned members’ relationships.
    Aaron Gilbreath, SPIN, 31 Dec. 2024
  • The iconic American bird was almost wiped out in the 1960s due to the pesticide DDT, which poisoned the eagles and made their eggs weak and flimsy.
    Clara Harter, Los Angeles Times, 28 Dec. 2024
Adjective
  • On the plus side, a New Moon will coincide with this planetary parade, giving way to exceptionally dark skies for viewing dim objects like Uranus and Neptune.
    Michael d'Estries, Travel + Leisure, 27 Feb. 2025
  • Still, under reasonable assumptions, a laser’s beam of focused light would be too dim to detect from a distance of just under six light-years, which is not enough to be spotted even at Barnard’s Star, the second-closest star system to our own.
    Phil Plait, Scientific American, 27 Feb. 2025
Adjective
  • Trump is always one for theatrics, though this speech was lackluster compared to the pomp and melodramatic moments of past Trump addresses to Congress.
    Domenico Montanaro, NPR, 5 Mar. 2025
  • The casualness of these arrangements, and the lack of standards, can lead to disappointment—and little recourse—when people pay hundreds for coaching that turns out to be lackluster.
    Olga Khazan, The Atlantic, 5 Mar. 2025
Adjective
  • Young Hollywood delivered fashion wins after a drab awards season Stars like Lisa, Rachel Sennott, Marissa Bode, Doja Cat, Emma Stone, Selena Gomez, Ana de Armas, Elle Fanning and Timothée Chalamet brought glam and drama to the end of an award season sorely missing it.
    William Earl, Variety, 3 Mar. 2025
  • Its partner is more drab, with tan and gray stripes on its head and brown streaks through its white throat.
    Donna L. Maney, Scientific American, 18 Feb. 2025
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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Cite this Entry

“Tarnished.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/tarnished. Accessed 12 Mar. 2025.

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