corrupted

1. 1
   adjective

   Containing errors, especially in stored data that has been damaged and can no longer be read or used correctly.

   Engineers spent the night recovering data from a corrupted backup drive.

   The download finished, but the archive turned out to be corrupted.

   Similardamaged, unreadable

   Oppositeintact

   Note

   A computing usage that pairs naturally with nouns for stored things: a corrupted disk, file, archive, backup or download. Unlike the "depraved" meaning, it assigns no blame, because the damage comes from a fault, not a vice. The verbs that cluster around it are recover, repair and restore, which is why it so often appears beside talk of salvaging data.

2. 2
   adjective

   Marked by deep immorality and depravity; morally rotten to the core.

   Like rot that spreads from the inside until nothing healthy is left.

   The biographer painted the dictator as a corrupted man indifferent to human life.

   Power and excess had left the court thoroughly corrupted.

   Similardepraved, degenerate, debauched, immoral, decadent

   Oppositevirtuous, moral, pure

3. 3
   adjective

   Behaving dishonestly; lacking honesty or integrity, especially in matters of public trust.

   Investigators exposed a corrupted procurement office that steered contracts to friends.

   The newspaper argued that the whole licensing board had grown corrupted.

   Similardishonest, crooked, venal

   Oppositehonest, incorruptible

4. 4
   verb

   Past participle of corrupt.

   Years of bribery had corrupted the entire planning department.

   The recording was corrupted by a faulty cable midway through the session.

   Note

   Have and be decide the voice: bribery had corrupted the department, but the file was corrupted by a faulty cable. The verb behind it reaches from depraving a person to falsifying a text or putting data into an invalid state, and the participle carries all of these. One older use, corrupting in the sense of rotting or putrefying, is now archaic.

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