pollution
Part of speech: noun
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: From Middle English pollucioun, pollucion (“desecration, impurity”), from Anglo-Norman pollutiun, Middle French pollution, pollucion, and their source, post-classical Latin pollūtiō (“defilement, desecration; nocturnal emission”) (4th century), from the participial stem of polluō (“to soil, defile, contaminate”), from por- (“before”) + -luō (“to smear”), related to lutum (“mud”) and luēs (“filth”). Compare Ancient Greek λῦμα (lûma, “filth, dirt, disgrace”) and λῦμαξ (lûmax, “rubbish, refuse”), Old Irish loth (“mud, dirt”), Lithuanian lutynas (“pool, puddle”).
Inflected forms:
form: pollutions
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: Physical contamination, now especially the contamination of the environment by harmful substances, or by disruptive levels of noise, light etc.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
usually
examples: Pollution levels are almost always higher in cities rather than the countryside, what with the cars, industry and so on.
If successful, Edison and Ford—in 1914—would move society away from the[…]hazards of gasoline cars: air and water pollution, noise and noxiousness, constant coughing and the undeniable rise in cancers caused by smoke exhaust particulates.
Schools across the country are moving to ban the school run amid growing concern about the devastating impact of air pollution on young people’s health.
Pollution now kills three times as many people worldwide as Aids, tuberculosis and malaria combined.
"Flying only looks like a bargain because the cost of pollution is so cheap."
gloss: Something that pollutes; a pollutant.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
usually
gloss: The desecration of something holy or sacred; defilement, profanation.
pos: noun
tags: archaic
uncountable
usually
examples: Men who attend the Altar, and should most / Endevor Peace: thir strife pollution brings / Upon the Temple it self […].
[T]he most gallant knights that ever wielded sword wasted their lives away in a struggle to seize it and hold it sacred from infidel pollution.
gloss: The ejaculation of semen outside of sexual intercourse, especially a nocturnal emission.
pos: noun
tags: archaic
uncountable
usually
examples: When occasioned by a voluntary act it is called, simply, Pollution or Masturbation (q.v.); when excited, during sleep, by lascivious dreams, it takes the name Noctur'nal pollution, Exoneiro'sis, Oneirog'mos, Oneirog'onos, Gonorrhœ'a dormien'tium, G. oneirog'onos, G. Vera, G. libidino'sa, Proflu'vium Sem'inis, Spermatorrhœ'a, Paronir'ia salax, Night pollution.
According to Billuart and other theologians, pollution in sleep is not sin, unless voluntarily caused; if, however, it begins in sleep, and is completed in the half-waking state, with a sense of pleasure, it is a venial sin.
gloss: Moral or spiritual corruption; impurity, degradation, defilement.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
usually
examples: She condescended to wait on them at Pemberley, in spite of that pollution which its woods had received.
Related words: polluter
Derived words: agropollution
air pollution
antipollution
biopollution
electropollution
genetic pollution
hydropollution
light pollution
nocturnal pollution
noise pollution
nonpollution
overpollution
photopollution
pollutician
pollutional
pollutionary
pollution-free
pollutionist
pollutionless
pollution permit system
self-pollution
soil pollution
underpollution
visual pollution
water pollution
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