pollute

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English polluten,^[2][3] borrowed from Latin pollūtus (“defiled”), the past participle of polluō (“to soil, defile”).^[2][3][4][5] Barnhart and Etymonline also allow a back-formation from the earlier pollution.^[6][7] The Latin verb is a compound of por- (“forward”),^[5][8] and a verb luō (“to make dirty”), from the same base as lutum (“mud”),^[5][9][4] from Proto-Indo-European *leu- (“to soil”).^[6][8] Cognates are Ancient Greek λῦμα (lûma, “filth, dirt”), Old Irish loth (“mud, dirt”), Lithuanian lutýnas (“puddle”) and, in the Tosk dialect, Albanian lum (“mud”).^[4][6][3] Skeat and Weekley instead took the second part as the verb "to wash", so that the word first meant to wash over.^[10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

To make morally or ceremonially impure, to profane or desecrate: before 1382, in the Wycliffite Bible,^[5][6] and about 1380, as polluten, "to defile", in Barnhart, who cites Chaucer's translation of Boethius.^[6]

Semantic evolution

For over 150 years the word was religious and moral: Middle English used it of violating the sanctity of a church or altar, of profaning God's name and of defiling the marriage bed.^[2] The physical sense, "to make foul or filthy", appears in 1548, in Hall's Union.^[5][6] Johnson (1755) still put "to make unclean, in a religious sense" first, then "to taint with guilt" and "to corrupt by mixtures of ill".^[12] The environmental sense came much later, and the sources date it differently: Etymonline says that it had emerged by 1860 but was not yet in the Century Dictionary of 1895,^[7] Barnhart dates it from 1954,^[6] and the Historical Thesaurus from 1966.^[13] Barnhart adds that the matching sense of pollution was sporadic in technical sources from 1877 and became general about 1955.^[6] The word has since widened further, to making something less suitable through unwanted factors.^[14] In Northern Ireland pollute could mean to tamper with, and in Scots and Irish use polluted with meant overrun or beset with.^[15]

Timeline

• c. 1380 – to defile.^[6]
• before 1382 – to desecrate, make ceremonially unclean.^[5][6]
• before 1382 – adjective, polluted, corrupted (obsolete by 1830).^[5]
• 1548 – to make physically foul or filthy.^[5][6]
• 1860 – to contaminate the environment.^[7] Barnhart dates this use from 1954.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To contaminate air, water or land with harmful substances or waste: The factory polluted the stream with dye.^[16][14][5]
2. To make less suitable by adding unwanted factors: Street lights pollute the night sky.^[14][17]
3. To make morally impure; to corrupt.^[16][14][5]
4. To desecrate or defile something sacred.^[16][3][5]

Adjective

1. (archaic) Polluted, corrupted.^[3][5][18]

Word family

• polluter

Related words

• pollutant
• pollution

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
14. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
15. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
16. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
17. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
18. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press