How to spell corrupt

hear itcor·rupt/kə'rəpt/verbHidden vowels

What it means: To damage, ruin, or alter something.

In a sentence: The pirate tried to corrupt the treasure map.

The part people get wrong

Watch for double r. Often misspelled as corupt or currupt.

Same family: corrupts, corrupted, corrupting, corruption, uncorrupted. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: Corrupt comes from Latin *corrumpere*, meaning ‘to spoil completely’ or ‘to destroy’, a combination of *com-* (‘together, completely’) and *rumpere* (‘to break’). Over time, its meaning shifted from physical damage to include moral and data “damage,” like corrupt officials or corrupt files.

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Words like this

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