environment

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The natural world of land, air, water, plants, and animals.

   Recycling helps protect the environment from pollution.

2. 2
   noun

   The conditions and surroundings in which someone lives or works.

   Children learn best in a calm and supportive environment.

3. 3
   noun

   The software or hardware set-up on a computer system.

   That program runs only in the Windows environment.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Environment belongs to a group of words whose earliest English member was the Middle English verb environ, “to form a circle round” or “surround.” Environ was borrowed from Old French and combines en-, “around,” with viron, “circuit,” from virer, “to turn.” Environment originally meant the act of surrounding something and later the environs of a place. In the mid-19th century it came to mean the external conditions affecting life, while its modern sense developed in the late 19th century.

From Middle French environnement. Compare French environnement. By surface analysis, environ + -ment.

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External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary