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.
Each year, the government rolls out emergency steps - halting construction, banning polluting vehicles - to curb the smog.
From BBC
If you don't want to pay our border tax, they say, just charge emissions fees on your polluting industries - collect the money yourselves.
From BBC
Microplastics are the current bete noire and rightly so, but we’re still in the dark about the causal calamity of a past era’s chemical polluting.
From Los Angeles Times
Fossil fuels pollute the air when they are extracted and when they are burned, but the steps between those two points involve far more than familiar scenes of drilling equipment and smoke-filled power plants.
From Science Daily
The dam collapse killed 19 people, polluted the river and destroyed hundreds of homes.
From BBC
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.
