pollute
Americanverb (used with object)
-
to make foul or unclean, especially with harmful chemical or waste products; dirty.
to pollute the air with smoke.
- Antonyms:
- purify
-
to make morally unclean; defile.
- Antonyms:
- purify
-
to render ceremonially impure; desecrate.
to pollute a house of worship.
-
Informal. to render less effective or efficient.
The use of inferior equipment has polluted the company's service.
verb
-
to contaminate, as with poisonous or harmful substances
-
to make morally corrupt or impure; sully
-
to desecrate or defile
Other Word Forms
- nonpolluting adjective
- polluter noun
- pollutive adjective
- unpolluting adjective
Etymology
Origin of pollute
First recorded in 1325–75; Middle English polute, from Latin pollūtus, past participle of polluere “to soil, defile,” equivalent to pol-, assimilated variant of por- “forth, forward” (variant of prefix per- ), here marking completed action + -lū- base of -luere (akin to lutum “mud, dirt,” lustrum “muddy place”) + -tus past participle suffix; per-
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.
"Overall, UK electricity became slightly more polluting in 2025," concluded Carbon Brief, adding that the nation's electricity exports grew and imports fell last year.
From Barron's
Under its "clean power" target, the government aims to use hardly any polluting gas to produce electricity by 2030.
From BBC
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.
An ambitious paralegal, Banna said she embraced the role she had in empowering residents to take on companies suspected of polluting their neighborhoods.
From Los Angeles Times
"Microplastics do not just pollute aquatic environments as visible particles. They also create an invisible chemical plume that changes as they weather," said lead author Jiunian Guan of Northeast Normal University.
From Science Daily
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.
