Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The act or process of polluting or the state of being polluted, especially the contamination of soil, water, or the atmosphere by the discharge of harmful substances.
  • noun Something that pollutes; a pollutant or a group of pollutants.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act of polluting; also, the state of being polluted; defilement; uncleanness; impurity.
  • noun Specifically, legal or ceremonial uncleanness, disqualifying a person for sacred services or for intercourse with others, or rendering anything unfit for sacred use.
  • noun The emission of semen at any other time than during coition: more frequently called self-pollution.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The act of polluting, or the state of being polluted (in any sense of the verb); defilement; uncleanness; impurity.
  • noun (Med.) The emission of semen, or sperm, at other times than in sexual intercourse.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The act of polluting or the state of being polluted, especially the contamination of the environment by harmful substances.
  • noun Something that pollutes; a pollutant.
  • noun archaic Physical defilement.
  • noun medicine, obsolete The emission of semen at other times than in sexual intercourse.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun undesirable state of the natural environment being contaminated with harmful substances as a consequence of human activities
  • noun the act of contaminating or polluting; including (either intentionally or accidentally) unwanted substances or factors
  • noun the state of being polluted

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Recorded since c.1340, 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 (lyma) "filth, dirt, disgrace" and (lymax) "rubbish, refuse," Old Irish loth "mud, dirt," Lithuanian lutynas "pool, puddle"). Sense of "contamination of the environment" first recorded c.1860

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Examples

Comments

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  • Polluzione, in Italian, is the medical term for a nocturnal emission, also known as wet dream.

    Sono andato a vivere in campagna per scappare dalla polluzione.

    March 31, 2009