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Webster 1913 Edition

Pollution

Pol-lu′tion

,
Noun.
[L.
pollutio
: cf. F.
pollution
.]
1.
The act of polluting, or the state of being polluted (in any sense of the verb); defilement; uncleanness; impurity.
2.
(Med.)
The emission of semen, or sperm, at other times than in sexual intercourse.
Dunglison.

Webster 1828 Edition

Pollution

POLLU'TION

,
Noun.
[L. pollutio.]
1.
The act of polluting.
2.
Defilement; uncleanness; impurity; the state of being polluted.
3.
In the Jewish economy, legal or ceremonial uncleanness, which disqualified a person for sacred services or for common intercourse with the people, or rendered any thing unfit for sacred use.
4.
In medicine, the involuntary emission of semen in sleep.
5.
In a religious sense, guilt,the effect of sin; idolatry, &c.

Definition 2024

Pollution

Pollution

See also: pollution

German

Noun

Pollution f ‎(genitive Pollution, plural Pollutionen)

  1. nocturnal emission

Declension

pollution

pollution

See also: Pollution

English

Noun

pollution ‎(plural pollutions)

  1. The act of polluting or the state of being polluted, especially the contamination of the environment by harmful substances.
    • 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 1, in Internal Combustion:
      If successful, Edison and Ford—in 1914—would move society away from the […] hazards of gasoline cars: air and water pollution, noise and noxiousness, constant coughing and the undeniable rise in cancers caused by smoke exhaust particulates.
    Nobody visits the river any more because of all the pollution.‎
  2. Something that pollutes; a pollutant.
  3. (archaic) Physical defilement.
  4. (medicine, obsolete) The emission of semen at other times than in sexual intercourse.
    • 1839, Robley Dunglison, Medical Lexicon, Blanchard, page 492 defines POLLUTION as:
      The excretion of seminal liquor or sperm, at other times than during coition. When occasioned by a voluntary act it is called, simply, Pollution or Masturbation (q.v.); when excited, during sleep, by lascivious dreams, it takes the name Noctur'nal pollution, Exoneiro'sis, Oneirog'mos, Oneirog'onos, Gonorrhœ'a dormien'tium, G. oneirog'onos, G. Vera, G. libidino'sa, Proflu'vium Sem'inis, Spermatorrhœ'a, Paronir'ia salax, Night pollution.

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French

Pronunciation

Noun

pollution f ‎(plural pollutions)

  1. pollution

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Etymology

Recorded since the 1340s, as "discharge of semen other than during sex", later, "desecration, defilement" (1382), from Late Latin pollutio ‎(“defilement”), from Latin polluere ‎(“to soil, defile, contaminate”), itself from por- ‎(“before”) + -luere ‎(“to smear”), related to lutum ‎(“mud”) and to lues ‎(“filth”); compare Greek [Term?] ‎(“filth, dirt, disgrace”) and [Term?] ‎(“rubbish, refuse”), Old Irish loth "mud, dirt", Lithuanian lutynas ‎(“pool, puddle”). The meaning "that which makes physically foul" is from 1540s. The sense of "contamination of the environment" was first recorded circa 1860, but not common until circa 1955.

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