pollution

Meaning

Noun

• The desecration of something holy or sacred; defilement, profanation.
• The ejaculation of semen outside of sexual intercourse, especially a nocturnal emission.
• Moral or spiritual corruption; impurity, degradation, defilement.
• Physical contamination, now especially the contamination of the environment by harmful substances, or by disruptive levels of noise, light etc.
• Something that pollutes; a pollutant.

Related

Similar words

• soilage
• self-pollution

Opposite words

• conservation
• purity

Origin

• 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, from por- + -luō, related to lutum and luēs. Compare Ancient Greek λῦμα and λῦμαξ, Old Irish loth, Lithuanian lutynas.