Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To make unfit for or harmful to living things, especially by the addition of waste matter. See Synonyms at contaminate.
- v. To make less suitable for an activity, especially by the introduction of unwanted factors: The stadium lights polluted the sky around the observatory.
- v. To render impure or morally harmful; corrupt.
- v. To make ceremonially impure; profane: "Churches and altars were polluted by atrocious murders” ( Edward Gibbon).
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To make foul or unclean; render impure; defile; soil; taint.
- To corrupt or defile in a moral sense; destroy the perfection or purity of; impair; profane.
- Specifically, to render legally or ceremonially unclean, so as to be unfit for sacred services or uses.
- To violate sexually; debauch or dishonor. Synonyms 1 and 2. Defile, Corrupt, etc. (see
taint ), deprave, degrade, debase. - Polluted; defiled.
Wiktionary
- v. transitive To make something harmful, especially by the addition of some unwanted product.
- v. transitive To make something or somewhere less suitable for some activity, especially by the introduction of some unnatural factor.
- v. dated To corrupt or profane
- adj. rare Polluted.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To make foul, impure, or unclean; to defile; to taint; to soil; to desecrate; -- used of physical or moral defilement.
- v. To violate sexually; to debauch; to dishonor.
- v. (Jewish Law) To render ceremonially unclean; to disqualify or unfit for sacred use or service, or for social intercourse.
- adj. rare Polluted.
WordNet 3.0
- v. make impure
Etymologies
- From Middle English polluten, from Latin pollūtum, from pollūtus ("no longer virgin", "unchaste"), perfect passive participle of polluō ("soil", "defile", "dishonor"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English polluten, from Latin polluere, pollūt-. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I forgive you, said I, and wish you happy; yet, on this condition only, that you never again pollute my ears with the recital of your infamous passion.”
The Coquette, or, The History of Eliza Wharton: A Novel Founded on Fact
“The hook in the bill is the proposal of capping emissions of greenhouse gases each year, allowing companies to buy and sell permits to "pollute" - translated it means that a coal-fired electric plant who violates it carbon cap can buy a carbon credit from a hydro-producing power facility that didn't use their allotted carbon credits,,, it's called”
“The flamboyant, bleach-blond politician also has called for taxing clothing commonly worn by Muslims, such as headscarves – or "head rags," as he once called them – because they "pollute" the Dutch landscape.”
The Huffington Post: Geert Wilders, Anti-Islam Dutch Politician, On Trial For Hate Speech Charges
“Wait a few moments, then click on your hero to 'pollute' the water.”
“Are we going to stand up and play it in an honorable fashion or we're going to do something like what Governor Sanford did, which was to inflict so much suffering and humiliation on his wife and to really kind of pollute and destroy this home that his four sons are growing up in and a part of.”
“Juries may award millions, but these cases arguably similar to use of Ford cars to 'pollute' are always shot down at the appellate stage for lack of proximate causation.”
“Laboratory space, particularly hoods (the kind exhausted only by draft caused by a gas burner causing warm air to raise and take some of the obnoxious fumes through a chimney) was very scarce and even by the time I became an assistant professor it was not welcome to "pollute" more important conventional work.”
“They did not believe that the values and life style of foreigners were equal to their own, and therefore they did not want to grant the outsiders the freedom to "pollute" American society with alien cultures.”
“We speak not now of those, who amidst the monuments of oppression are engaged in the sacred vocation; who, as ministers of the Gospel, can "prophesy smooth things" to such as pollute the altar of Jehovah with human sacrifices; nay, who themselves bind the victim and kindle the sacrifice.”
“We speak not now of those, who amidst the monuments of oppression are engaged in the sacred vocation; who as ministers of the Gospel can "prophesy smooth things" to such as pollute the altar of Jehovah with human sacrifices; nay, who themselves bind the victim and kindle the sacrifice.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘pollute’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11250 more...
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Misc. Words.
Words I like to use, words I like but may forget.
corrosion, astonish, solace, ferment, continuum, kinesthetic, permeate, repose, caprice, cardinal, discourse, surrender and 610 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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