Pollution is dirt and poison that human activity puts into air and water. Air pollution, cut pollution, pollution levels.
Air pollution kills millions of people a year, and the smallest particles are the dangerous ones because they pass from the lungs into the blood. Light and noise count as pollution too. The Latin means to defile.
1nounpollutionDirt and poison put into air and water by human activity.
“Traffic pollution is so bad in the city centre that some cyclists wear masks.”
pollution is contamination.
Latin pollutio comes from polluere, to defile or soil.
Latin
pollūtiō — defilement, desecration; nocturnal emission
Middle French
pollution
Anglo-Norman
pollutiun
Middle English
pollucioun
English, today
pollution
Built from
From Middle English pollucioun, pollucion (“desecration, impurity”), 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 (“to soil, defile, contaminate”), from por- (“before”) + -luō (“to smear”), related to lutum (“mud”) and luēs (“filth”). Compare Ancient Greek λῦμα (“filth, dirt, disgrace”) and λῦμαξ (“rubbish, refuse”), Old Irish loth (“mud, dirt”), Lithuanian lutynas (“pool, puddle”). by surface analysis, pollute + -ion.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA