To treat, disinfect, or add chlorine to something, especially water, to kill harmful bacteria and make it safe for drinking or swimming.
From chlorine + the verbal suffix -ate, a suffix common in chemistry and Latin-derived verbs meaning 'to subject to' or 'to treat with.' Popularized in the early 1900s with water treatment.
Chlorination is one of the most important public health inventions ever—it's estimated to have saved millions of lives by making drinking water safe, yet most people never think about it when they turn on the tap.
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