a. and sb. [ad. L. adulterīn-us born of adultery, spurious; f. adulter. Used first in the fig. sense.] A. adj.
1. Born of adultery.
1751. Chambers, Cycl. Adulterine children are more odious than the illegitimate offspring of single persons.
1875. Maine, Hist. Inst., ii. 53. Matthew O’Neill was an adulterine bastard.
2. Of or relating to adultery.
1865. Pall Mall G., 25 Aug., 9/1. The demand for homicidal and adulterine fiction is enormous.
3. fig. Spurious, counterfeit; due to adulteration.
1542. Becon, Potation for Lent, Wks. 1843, 87. To try the adulterine, feigned, and false, from the sincere, germane, and true learning.
1546. Suppl. of Commons, 92. Forget not your owne youthe, when these adulterine trees were too stronge for you.
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., II. iv. I. i. (1676), 226/2. A knave Apothecary … may doe infinite harme, by … adulterine drugs, bad mixtures.
a. 1667. Jer. Taylor, Serm. (1678), 182. As adulterine Metals retain the Lustre and Colour of Gold, but not the Value.
1865. Kingsley, Herew., xx. (in Gd. Wds., 417/2). The French look on us monk-made knights as spurious and adulterine, unworthy of the name of knight.
4. Illegal, illegitimate, unlicensed; esp. in Eng. Hist. ‘Adulterine’ castles, guilds.
1640. Bp. Hall, Episc. by Div. Right, II. § 8. 130. It is enough that it is adulterine, for that it is not named by the Apostles.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., Adulterine marriages, in St. Augustine’s sense, denote second marriages, contracted after a divorce.
1776. Adam Smith, W. N. (1869), I. I. x. 130. When any particular class of artificers or traders thought proper to act as a corporation or guild without a charter, such were called adulterine guilds.
1829. Heath, Grocers’ Comp. (1869), 39. Upon the Pipe Roll of the 26th Henry and is a return of the adulterine Gilds in the city of London.
1851. Turner, Dom. Archit., II. Introd. 23. The erection of numerous fortresses, adulterine castles they were termed, as built without license from the crown.
1875. Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. x. 333. The adulterine or unlicensed castles, by whomsoever erected … are to be destroyed.
B. sb. An illegitimate child. rare.
1798. H. Colebrooke, Hindu Law (1801), II. 480. ‘Cunda ‘is explained, by Amera, an adulterine begotten during the husband’s life-time.
