/ kəˈrʌpt; NAmE / adjective , verb
■ adjective
1.
( of people ) willing to use their power to do dishonest or illegal things in return for money or to get an advantage :
a corrupt regime
corrupt officials accepting bribes
2.
( of behaviour ) dishonest or immoral :
corrupt practices
The whole system is inefficient and corrupt.
3.
( computing ) containing changes or faults, and no longer in the original state :
corrupt software
The text on the disk seems to be corrupt.
► cor·rupt·ly adverb
■ verb
1.
[ vn ] to have a bad effect on sb and make them behave in an immoral or dishonest way :
He was corrupted by power and ambition.
the corrupting effects of great wealth
2.
[ vn ] [ often passive ] to change the original form of sth, so that it is damaged or spoiled in some way :
a corrupted form of Buddhism
3.
( computing ) to cause mistakes to appear in a computer file, etc. with the result that the information in it is no longer correct :
[ vn ]
The program has somehow corrupted the system files.
corrupted data
[ v ]
The disk will corrupt if it is overloaded.
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WORD ORIGIN
Middle English : from Latin corruptus , past participle of corrumpere mar, bribe, destroy, from cor- altogether + rumpere to break.