polluted
[puh-loo-tid]
- made unclean or impure; contaminated; tainted: swimming in polluted waters.
- Slang. drunk.
Show More
Origin of polluted
pollute
[puh-loot]
- to make foul or unclean, especially with harmful chemical or waste products; dirty: to pollute the air with smoke.
- to make morally unclean; defile.
- 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.
Show More
Origin of pollute
1325–75; Middle English polute < Latin pollūtus past participle of polluere to soil, defile, equivalent to pol-, assimilated variant of por- (see pollicitation; here marking the action as complete) + -lū- base of -luere (akin to lutum mud, dirt, lustrum muddy place) + -tus past participle suffix
Synonyms
See more synonyms for pollute on Thesaurus.com1. soil, befoul. 2. taint, contaminate, vitiate, corrupt, debase, deprave.
Antonyms
1, 2. purify.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for polluted
Contemporary Examples
Instead, he wanted viewers to grasp that “this spring from which Mother Courage drank death was a polluted one.”
“Sometimes I worry what these polluted bodies are doing to the environment, too,” he says.
Has Tomblin been drinking the Tea Party's polluted Kool-Aid?
The toxins have polluted the groundwater and poisoned the soil.
Italy’s Triangle Of Death: Naples Residents Blame Child Cancer Rates On Mob Disposal Of Toxic ChemicalsBarbie Latza Nadeau
November 21, 2013
Once known as the most polluted place on earth, the city of Linfen is being held up as bastion of green progress.
Historical Examples
He worships every handsome woman, who will allow herself to be polluted by his incense.
PhilotheaLydia Maria Child
It sheared off heads so many, that it, and the ground it most polluted, were a rotten red.
A Tale of Two CitiesCharles Dickens
We do not say that art should be despised by the novelist; we only contend that it should not be polluted.
This, it is said, is an effective arrangement for drawing off the polluted air of a room.
Rural HygieneHenry N. Ogden
But heresies have polluted every church, and schisms are the fruit of disputation.
The PioneersJames Fenimore Cooper
polluted
- made unclean or impure; contaminated
- US slang intoxicated; drunk
Show More
pollute
- to contaminate, as with poisonous or harmful substances
- to make morally corrupt or impure; sully
- to desecrate or defile
Show More
Word Origin
C14 polute, from Latin polluere to defile
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for polluted
adj.
c.1400, "rendered impure or unclean," past participle adjective from pollute (v.). Meaning "drunk" is from 1912, American English slang; ecological sense is from 1888.
Show More
pollute
v.
late 14c., "to defile," a back formation from pollution, or else from Latin pollutus, past participle of polluere "to defile, pollute, contaminate." Related: Polluted; polluting. Meaning "make physically foul" is from 1540s; specific sense "contaminate the environment" emerged from late 19c.
Show More
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
pollute
(pə-lōōt′)- To make unfit for or harmful to living things, especially by the addition of waste matter; contaminate.
- To make less suitable for an activity, especially by the introduction of unwanted factors.
Show More
The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.