Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Surrounding; encircling: ambient sound; ambient air.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Surrounding; encompassing on all sides; investing: applied to aëriform fluids or diffusible substances.
- Moving round; circling about.
- n. That which encompasses on all sides, as a sphere or the atmosphere.
- n. A canvasser, a suitor, or an aspirant.
Wiktionary
- adj. Encompassing on all sides; surrounding; encircling; enveloping.
- adj. music Evoking or creating an atmosphere: atmospheric.
- adj. Relating to, or suitable for, storage at room temperature.
- n. Something that surrounds.
- n. uncountable, music A type of modern music which incorporates elements of various musical styles, and creates a relaxing and peaceful atmosphere.
- n. astrology The atmosphere; the surrounding air or sky; plural atmospheric components collectively such as air, clouds, water vapour, hail, etc.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Encompassing on all sides; circumfused; investing.
- n. Something that surrounds or invests.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. completely enveloping
Etymologies
- From Latin ambiens ("going around"), from ambiō ("go around"). (Wiktionary)
- Latin ambiēns, ambient-, present participle of ambīre, to surround : amb-, ambi-, around; see ambi- + īre, to go; see ei- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Just finished this book: five hundred pages of almost everything loosely associable with the term ambient music in the twentieth century.”
“I would also fathom to think that if you did allow a bit of time to elapse that it may have got warmer or cooler in ambient air temp.”
“Perhaps in major cities such as Monterrey or Mexico City or Guadalajara or Veracruz, etc., the ambient is different.”
“I suggest that these broad, asynchronous, lightweight and always-on systems are enabling citizens to maintain a mental model of news and events around them, giving rise to awareness systems that I describe as ambient journalism.”
“realtime search," as the consumption of this signal will predominantly be in what I call ambient streams.”
“Cluster, Robert Fripp, Kevin Ayers, Jon Hassell and Harold Budd, as stern futurist mentor to Devo and Ultravox, as discerning curator of the beautifully conceived contemporary music label Obscure, as careful discoverer of the pulseless, wordless, eventless, timeless music he lovingly called "ambient" - that pop music was where you could be the kind of artist he wanted to be.”
“a term coined by Lisa Reichelt (in short, ambient intimacy is about being able to keep in touch with people with a level of regularity and intimacy that you wouldn't usually have access to, because time and space conspire to make it impossible).”
“Salvaging" is awash with layered guitars until the arrival of a gorgeous orchestral interlude that's too rich to be called ambient music.”
“Until now, The Fireman's work -- "Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest" (Capitol), released in 1993, and "Rushes" (Capitol), issued five years later -- could be classified as ambient dance music: Electronic pulses provide the underpinning to repeating themes punctuated by percussion, shouts and exclamations, though if you listen carefully you can hear the occasional fragment of a McCartney recording.”
The Wall Street Journal: Paul McCartney's Latest Collaboration
“The recommendations for water protection are known as ambient water quality criteria.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘ambient’.
-
EN - newSPEAK
Buzzwords of our time
actionable, administrivia, advermation, agreeance, backbone provider, back-sourcing, baked in, bandwidth, barn raising, Barneyware, belly-buttons, Below Zeros and 1076 more...
-
music genre
list of music genres - anything. even the most obscure sub-genres of sub-genres
twee pop, indie, shoegaze, doo-wop, punk, rock, jazz, pop, classical, hard rock, emo, goth and 190 more...
-
AGRI - sustainable agriculture
abiota, aborigines, absorptive capacity, acceptable daily ..., acclimation, acid precipitation, acquired by weeds..., active solar heating, acute, adaptation, additives, aerosol and 447 more...
-
Musikgenres
indietronic, shoegaze, antifolk, freak-folk, dance punk, dubstep, indie, electro, house, minimalist, underground, drum'n'base and 74 more...
-
capitalcreative's Words
deviltry, visceral, cassanova, assuage, genesis, hot minute, osmosis, wistful, sublime, loathe, farfetched, newfangled and 283 more...
-
Just 'cause I like 'em, A
abaculus, abacus, abaft, abarticular, abbreviate, abeyance, abiding, anthocyanin, antemeridian, arcane, adjure, adduce and 418 more...
-
words unknown
repeat!!!
laissez faire, propensity, punitive, explicit, whim, extenuating, distort, gross, grossly, hearsay, dispel, apprehensive and 113 more...
-
The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
-
slumry's Words
cattywampus, ingratiate, lackadaisical, exactitude, exfoliate, fulminate, circumnavigation, circuitous, debride, sidle, sequester, chicory and 1002 more...
-
word set 2
preemptively, crocodilian, gyrator, wallowing, sodbusters, electrification, manganese, swabbing, plummeted, silhouetting, careening, frothy and 101 more...
-
Wordplay
reticent, slammerkin, moonstruck, zephyr, gallivant, hullabaloo, pandemonium, equestrian, wallflower, martyr, threadbare, treacherous and 180 more...
-
Words I have to learn
exasperate, felony, weld, fraud, worksheet, ransom, rehearse, preliminary, offshore, parole, infamous, sieve and 436 more...
-
spread out, spacious words of spe
words pertaining to the root spe- (hope) with some allegorical liberties.
paten, pan, pass, patent, petal, expand, repand, passacaglia, passe, paseo, paella, spawn and 150 more...
-
words found to be generally pleasing
alabaster, mahogany, camphor, coalesce, spire, portmanteau, gadabout, palaver, dolor, dour, dun, luminesce and 610 more...
-
SAT PSAT ALPHABETICAL A
abandon, abash, abate, abjure, ablution, abnegate, abominable, aboriginal, abortive, abrade, abridge, abrogate and 172 more...
-
Words grabbed from real life conversa...
If I've seen it, heard it, or marvelled at it, I'll stick it here.
cruft, ermine, redundant, shakespearean, camino, marvelous, stupendous, chagrin, shaven, sleek, smug, stillness and 325 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for ambient.
bilby Ambient 1. Sep 6, 2009