pollution

From Middle English pollucion, 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”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /pəˈl(j)uːʃən/
• (US) IPA^(key): /pəˈluʃən/

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pollution (countable and uncountable, plural pollutions)

1. Physical contamination, now especially the contamination of the environment by harmful substances, or by disruptive levels of noise, light etc. [from 18th c.]

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

   • 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 1, in Internal Combustion‎:

     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.

   • 2018, Matthew Taylor, The Guardian, 13 July:

     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.

   • 2019, George Monbiot, Cars are killing us. Within 10 years, we must phase them out in the Guardian.

     Pollution now kills three times as many people worldwide as Aids, tuberculosis and malaria combined.

2. Something that pollutes; a pollutant. [from 17th c.]
3. (now rare) The desecration of something holy or sacred; defilement, profanation. [from 14th c.]
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book XII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], OCLC 228722708; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554:

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

   • 1869, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrims’ Progress; […], Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company. […], OCLC 35710691:

     [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.

4. (now archaic) The ejaculation of semen outside of sexual intercourse, especially a nocturnal emission. [from 14th c.]
   • 1839, Robley Dunglison, Medical Lexicon, Blanchard, page 492:

     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.

5. Moral or spiritual corruption; impurity, degradation, defilement. [from 15th c.]
   • 1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], Pride and Prejudice, volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton […], OCLC 38659585:

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

• soilage
• (masturbation): self-pollution

• conservation
• purity

• polluter

Borrowed from Latin pollūtiō. Synchronically, from polluer +‎ -tion.

• IPA^(key): /pɔ.ly.sjɔ̃/

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pollution f (plural pollutions)

1. pollution

   Synonyms: profanation, souillure

   pollution nocturne ― wet dream (literally, “nocturnal pollution”)

• pollution lumineuse
• pollution sonore

• polluant
• pollutif

• “pollution”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.