compromised

1. 1
   adjective

   Exposed to danger, risk, or loss of trust, so that something can no longer be relied on or kept safe.

   Like a cracked dam that may still hold, but can no longer be trusted to.

   Doctors watch patients with compromised immune systems very closely.

   The evidence was compromised, so the court could not rely on it.

   Similarweakened, impaired, tainted, damaged, vulnerable

   Oppositeintact, secure, sound, uncompromised

   Note

   Built from the verb with -ed, the adjective keeps only the verb's darker side. Something compromised has been weakened or exposed. It never means settled by meeting halfway. It sits comfortably in medical and technical prose, as in a compromised skin barrier or a compromised immune system, where it means damaged enough that the thing can no longer do its job.

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of compromise.

   The data breach compromised millions of user accounts.

   Both sides compromised and finally reached a fair agreement.

   Note

   Whether there is an object decides which meaning you get. With no object it is the give-and-take sense: both sides compromised. With an object it turns damaging: the breach compromised the accounts, and a rash remark compromised her reputation. As a past participle it forms perfects and passives (has compromised, was compromised), and the passive slides easily into the adjective of damage or exposure.

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