corrupt
B2Formal (when describing institutions/people); Technical (when describing data/computing)
Definition
Meaning
Having or showing a willingness to act dishonestly in return for money or personal gain; to cause someone or something to become dishonest, morally depraved, or to make something (like data) erroneous or unusable.
Describes a state of moral decay, bribery, or perversion of integrity in individuals, institutions, or systems (e.g., government, data). It implies a deviation from an original, pure, or intended state towards a flawed, tainted, or broken one.
Linguistics
Semantic Notes
The word spans concrete/legal contexts (bribery) and abstract/moral ones (decay). As a verb, it often implies an agent causing the corruption, but can also describe a gradual internal process (e.g., 'power corrupts').
Dialectal Variation
British vs American Usage
Differences
No significant spelling or usage differences. Both varieties use it identically in legal, political, and computing contexts.
Connotations
Equally strong negative connotations in both dialects.
Frequency
Comparably frequent, with perhaps slightly higher frequency in AmE media reporting on political scandals.
Vocabulary
Collocations
Grammar
Valency Patterns
corrupt [someone][something] corrupts [someone]be/become corruptcorrupt [data/file]Vocabulary
Synonyms
Strong
Neutral
Weak
Vocabulary
Antonyms
Phrases
Idioms & Phrases
- “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
- “Rotten to the core (describing a corrupt group).”
Usage
Context Usage
Business
Refers to bribery, kickbacks, or unethical business practices (e.g., 'The company was fined for corrupt dealings').
Academic
Used in political science, sociology, and law to describe institutional decay, graft, and bribery (e.g., 'Studies on corrupt governance').
Everyday
Describing dishonest politicians, police, or officials (e.g., 'Everyone knows the council is corrupt').
Technical
In computing, describes unreadable or damaged data or files (e.g., 'The hard drive failure corrupted the database').
Examples
By Part of Speech
verb
British English
- Absolute power can corrupt even the most idealistic leader.
- The virus corrupted several essential system files.
- He was accused of trying to corrupt the jury.
American English
- The politician was found guilty of corrupting the bidding process.
- A sudden power surge corrupted the data on the server.
- They argued that excessive wealth corrupts society's values.
adverb
British English
- The funds were corruptly misappropriated by the treasurer.
- He acted corruptly in accepting those gifts.
American English
- The contract was corruptly awarded to the mayor's brother.
- She was accused of governing corruptly for years.
adjective
British English
- The inquiry revealed a deeply corrupt police unit.
- They fled the corrupt regime seeking asylum.
- My laptop can't open the corrupt spreadsheet.
American English
- The senator was ousted in a corrupt election scheme.
- The file is corrupt and cannot be recovered.
- He was part of a corrupt network of city inspectors.
Examples
By CEFR Level
- The man was corrupt and took money.
- The computer file is corrupt.
- The newspaper exposed the corrupt mayor.
- Too much power can corrupt people.
- I lost my essay because the document became corrupt.
- The new law aims to punish corrupt officials more severely.
- The investigation showed how the entire department had been corrupted over time.
- A corrupt disk sector can make your whole backup unusable.
- The systemic and deeply entrenched corrupt practices undermined the nation's economic development.
- Philosophically, he pondered whether society corrupts the individual or vice versa.
- The forensic team worked to reconstruct the corrupt database from fragmented remnants.
Learning
Memory Aids
Mnemonic
Think: A ROTTEN, RUPTURED core. 'Cor-' (like 'core') + 'rupt' (like 'rupture' or 'break'). A broken, rotten core is corrupt.
Conceptual Metaphor
CORRUPTION IS DISEASE/DECAY (a corrupting influence, a cancer on society, a rotten system). CORRUPTION IS POLLUTION/CONTAMINATION (tainted money, dirty politics).
Watch out
Common Pitfalls
Translation Traps (for Russian speakers)
- Do not confuse with 'коррупционный' only; 'corrupt' as an adjective can describe the person (коррумпированный) AND the system. As a verb, it's 'развращать' morally or 'повреждать' data.
- The computing meaning ('повреждать файл') is direct and common.
- 'Corrupt' is stronger than просто 'нечестный' (dishonest); it implies systemic moral decay.
Common Mistakes
- Using 'corrupted' as the main adjective for people (prefer 'corrupt official', not 'corrupted official'). 'Corrupted' is more often a verb past tense/participle (e.g., 'He was corrupted by power').
- Confusing 'corrupt' with 'corrode' (which is for physical decay, like metal).
Practice
Quiz
In which context is the word 'corrupt' LEAST likely to be used?
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
It is very common as both. The adjective form is highly frequent in political/news discourse ('corrupt official'), while the verb form is common in moral discussions ('power corrupts') and computing ('the file corrupted').
'Corrupt' is the base adjective describing a state (a corrupt system). 'Corrupted' is typically the past participle of the verb, emphasizing the process that happened (a corrupted file, a man corrupted by greed). Using 'corrupted' as the default adjective for people/institutions is less common and can sound non-idiomatic.
Almost never in modern usage. Its core meaning is negative (dishonesty, decay). In rare, archaic, or highly specialized linguistic contexts, it could mean 'altered from an original form', but even then the connotation is usually of degradation.
The noun is 'corruption'. It refers to the practice, system, or state of being corrupt (e.g., 'political corruption', 'data corruption'). 'Corrupt' describes the entity; 'corruption' describes the abstract concept or activity.