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pollution.

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

9 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/pəˈljuːʃən/Received-Pronunciation/pəˈluːʃən/Received-Pronunciation/pəˈluʃən/US
  1. Physical contamination, now especially the contamination of the environment by harmful substances, or by disruptive levels of noise, light etc.

    uncountable · usually
    Pollution levels are almost always higher in cities rather than the countryside, what with the cars, industry and so on.
  2. Something that pollutes; a pollutant.

    uncountable · usually
  3. The desecration of something holy or sacred; defilement, profanation.

    archaic · uncountable · usually
  4. The ejaculation of semen outside of sexual intercourse, especially a nocturnal emission.

    archaic · uncountable · usually
  5. Moral or spiritual corruption; impurity, degradation, defilement.

    uncountable · usually
Where this word comes from

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”). By surface analysis, pollute + -ion.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.