pollution

Etymology

Recorded since the 1340s, as "discharge of semen other than during sex", later, "desecration, defilement" (1382), from Late Latin pollutio (“defilement”), from Latin polluere (“to soil, defile, contaminate”), itself from por- (“before”) + -luere (“to smear”), related to lutum (“mud”) and to lues (“filth”); compare Greek [Term?] (“filth, dirt, disgrace”) and [Term?] (“rubbish, refuse”), Old Irish loth "mud, dirt", Lithuanian lutynas (“pool, puddle”). The meaning "that which makes physically foul" is from 1540s. The sense of "contamination of the environment" was first recorded circa 1860, but not common until circa 1955.

Pronunciation

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Noun

pollution (countable and uncountable, plural pollutions)

1. The act of polluting or the state of being polluted, especially the contamination of the environment by harmful substances.
   • 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.

   Nobody visits the river any more because of all the pollution.

2. Something that pollutes; a pollutant.
3. (archaic) Physical defilement.
4. (medicine, obsolete) The emission of semen at other times than in sexual intercourse.
   • 1839, Robley Dunglison, Medical Lexicon, Blanchard, page 492 defines POLLUTION as:

     The excretion of seminal liquor or sperm, at other times than during coition. 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.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pɔ.ly.sjɔ̃/

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Noun

pollution f (plural pollutions)

1. pollution

Further reading

• “pollution” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).