adjective
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made unclean or impure; contaminated
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slang intoxicated; drunk
Other Word Forms
- pollutedness noun
- unpolluted adjective
Etymology
Origin of polluted
Middle English word dating back to 1350–1400; pollute, -ed 2
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
If social media were a literal ecosystem, it would be about as healthy as Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River in the 1960s—when it was so polluted it repeatedly caught fire.
Superfund sites are locations polluted by hazardous waste that the Environmental Protection Agency has flagged for cleanup due to threats to human health or the environment.
From Science Daily
The ocean was polluted with fallout and runoff, the long-term impact of contaminated air and soil remains unknown, and the death toll climbed to 31.
From Los Angeles Times
Delhi, with its sprawling metropolitan region of 30 million residents, is regularly ranked among the world's most polluted capitals.
From Barron's
The failure of the mine-waste dam and resulting mudslide near the town of Mariana killed 19 people and polluted more than 400 miles of rivers.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
