vitiation

noun

1. A reduction in the value, or an impairment in the quality of something.

   countable, uncountable

   […] air was universally reputed to be a simple or elementary body. It was liable, according to the phlogistians, to vitiation, by the addition to it of phlogiston […] being more or less phlogisticated, according to the degree of its power to support respiration and combustion.

   1810, George Wilson, M.D., F.R.D.E. Ch. II. General Sketch of Cavendish's Scientific Researches and Discoveries, in The Life of the Honᵇˡᵉ Henry Cavendish, p. 39.

2. Moral corruption.

   countable, uncountable

3. An abolition or abrogation.

   countable, uncountable

Where it comes from

From Latin vitiare (“to spoil, damage”).

Adapted from the Wiktionary entry vitiation (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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