pollution

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   Physical contamination, now especially the contamination of the environment by harmful substances, or by disruptive levels of noise, light etc.

   Pollution levels are almost always higher in cities rather than the countryside, what with the cars, industry and so on.

2. 2
   noun

   The desecration of something holy or sacred; defilement, profanation.

   Men who attend the Altar, and should most / Endevor Peace: thir strife pollution brings / Upon the Temple it self […].

3. 3
   noun

   The ejaculation of semen outside of sexual intercourse, especially a nocturnal emission.

   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.

4. 4
   noun

   Moral or spiritual corruption; impurity, degradation, defilement.

   She condescended to wait on them at Pemberley, in spite of that pollution which its woods had received.

5. 5
   noun

   the act of contaminating or polluting

6. 6
   noun

   the state of being polluted

7. 7
   noun

   undesirable state of the natural environment being contaminated with harmful substances as a consequence of human activities

8. 8
   noun

   Something that pollutes; a pollutant.

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”).