Word Confusion: Taint versus Tint

Plural for the noun: taints
Gerund: tainting

Third person present verb: taints
Past tense or past participle: tainted
Present participle: tainting

Plural for the noun: tints
Gerund: tinting

Third person present verb: tints
Past tense or past participle: tinted
Present participle: tinting

• A thing whose influence or effect is perceived as contaminating or undesirable
• An unpleasant smell

A trace of infection, contamination, etc.

A trace of dishonor or discredit

[US; vulgar slang] The area between the testicles or vagina and the anus ²

• The perineum

Verb, intransitive:
[Archaic; of food or water] Become contaminated, spoiled, or polluted ¹

Verb, transitive:
Contaminate, corrupt, spoil, or pollute (something) ¹

• Affect with a bad or undesirable quality

• A color diluted with white
• A color of less than maximum purity, chromo, or saturation
• A delicate or pale color
• A trace of something

An artificial dye for coloring the hair

• An application of hair dye

[Engraving] A uniform shading, as that produced by a series of fine parallel lines, used for highlighting overprinted text

• A set of parallel engraved lines to give uniform shading

[Printing; tint block] A faintly or lightly colored background upon which an illustration or the like is to be printed

Verb, intransitive:
To acquire a tint

Verb, transitive:
[Usually be tinted] Color (something) slightly

• Tinge
• Dye (someone’s hair)

That taint threatens to stain most of the company’s other partners.

The lingering taint of creosote warned us not to use those timbers.

A gooch, a grundle, and a taint are all the same thing, and they act as a wall between your anus and your balls so that everything can stay clean.

Verb, intransitive:
The rennet should be soaked in water containing sufficient salt to keep it from tainting.

Whoa, don’t go in there. The bathroom is tainted!

Meat soon taints in warm weather.

Verb, transitive:
The air was tainted by fumes from the cars.

His administration was tainted by scandal.

“The plan comes as President Donald Trump claims, without evidence, that widespread voter fraud will taint the election” (Young).

She held a tint of glamour about her.

He wondered if he should start thinking about a hair tint.

I found her peering into the mirror to see if any white hair showed after her last tint.

We can still use white paper, as the printer can create a tint behind the image.

In England the most engaging lithographer was Whistler, who used delicate lines and tints in his Nocturnes of the Thames.

Verb, intransitive:
She had her hair tinted.

He had his eyebrows tinted to get rid of the gray.

Did you have your windows tinted?

Verb, transitive:
Her skin was tinted with delicate color.

The ladies who lunch spent hours having their hair tinted and set.

I wanted a blue dye wash over the background so that the whole cover was tinted a pale blue color with the title in a deep gray.

It was this color that tinted his broad mustache and the short, precise goatee on his chin.

1. Middle English, as a verb in the sense convict, prove guilty is partly from the Old French teint meaning tinged, based on the Latin tingere meaning to dye, tinge and partly a shortening of attaint.
2. 1950s, from the contraction of it ain’t in humorous phrases referring to the perineum’s position on the body, characterized as being neither the anus nor the genitals, i.e., “T’aint a pussy and t’aint an asshole”.