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Admixture vs Alloy vs Adulterant

Admixture, alloy and adulterant are comparable when they denote an added ingredient that destroys the purity or genuineness of a substance.

Admixture suggests the addition of the foreign or the nonessential.

  • pure Indian without any admixture of white blood
  • love with an admixture of selfishness
  • comic verses with an occasional admixture of mild bawdry
    Cowie)

Alloy derives its figurative implication of an addition that detracts from the value or perfection of a thing from an old literal application to a base metal added to a precious metal to give it hardness.

  • there’s no fortune so good, but it has its alloy
    Bacon
  • he had his alloy, like other people, of ambition and selfishness
    Rose Macaulay

Adulterant, both literally and figuratively, implies the addition of something that debases or impairs a thing without markedly affecting its appearance. Consequently it usually implies the intent to deceive.

  • interests . . . trying to upgrade consumer thinking on wool by classifying the new textile fibers as adulterants
    A. Adams
  • piety without any adulterant of hypocrisy