Archaic or rare term meaning contaminating, contagious, or defiling; tending to spread corruption or uncleanness.
From Latin contaminare with the -ous suffix (meaning 'full of' or 'having the quality of'), an older adjectival form than the modern 'contaminating.' This pattern was common in Middle English but has largely been replaced.
Old medical texts used 'contaminous' to describe diseases they thought spread through 'bad air'—it's a word from when doctors didn't understand germs, showing how language preserves outdated beliefs.
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