Definition of "maculate" [mac•u•late]

• To spot, blemish, or pollute. (verb-transitive)
• Spotted or blotched. (adjective)
• Stained; impure. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Because the notion of blackness has been made equivalent to sin: maculate vs. immaculate, the staining of purity."
• "Its immaculate reputation sits totally at odds with its maculate workings."
• "A Cordelier has no hesitation in applying the epithet of blasphemer to a Dominican who says that the Holy Virgin was born in original sin, notwithstanding that the Dominicans have a bull from the pope which permits them to teach the maculate conception in their convents, and that, besides this bull, they have in their forum the express declaration of St. Thomas Aquinas."