different between blot vs pollution

English

Etymology

From Middle English blot (“blot, spot, stain, blemish”). Perhaps from Old Norse *blettr (“blot, stain”) (only attested in documents from after Old Norse transitioned to Icelandic blettur), or from Old French bloche (“clod of earth”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /bl?t/
• Rhymes: -?t
• (General American) IPA^(key): /bl?t/

Noun

blot (plural blots)

1. A blemish, spot or stain made by a coloured substance.
   • 1711, Jonathan Swift, An Excellent New Song

     I withdrew my subscription by help of a blot, / And so might discover or gain by the plot:

   • 1918, Siegfried Sassoon, “The Death-Bed” in The Old Huntsman and Other Poems, London: Heinemann, p. 95,^[1]

     […] He was blind; he could not see the stars

     Glinting among the wraiths of wandering cloud;

     Queer blots of colour, purple, scarlet, green,

     Flickered and faded in his drowning eyes.

2. (by extension) A stain on someone's reputation or character; a disgrace.
3. (biochemistry) A method of transferring proteins, DNA or RNA, onto a carrier.
4. (backgammon) An exposed piece in backgammon.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

blot (third-person singular simple present blots, present participle blotting, simple past and past participle blotted)

1. (transitive) to cause a blot (on something) by spilling a coloured substance.
2. (intransitive) to soak up or absorb liquid.

   This paper blots easily.

3. (transitive) To dry (writing, etc.) with blotting paper.
4. (transitive) To spot, stain, or bespatter, as with ink.
   • 1566, George Gascoigne, Dan Bartholmew of Bath

     The briefe was writte and blotted all with gore, […]

5. (transitive) To impair; to damage; to mar; to soil.
6. (transitive) To stain with infamy; to disgrace.
   • 1707, Nicholas Rowe, The Royal Convert

     Blot not thy Innocence with guiltle?s Blood.

7. (transitive) To obliterate, as writing with ink; to cancel; to efface; generally with out.

   to blot out a word or a sentence
8. (transitive) To obscure; to eclipse; to shadow.
   • 1656, Abraham Cowley, Davideis

     He ?ung how Earth blots the Moons gilded Wane, […]

Derived terms

Translations

Anagrams

• Bolt, bolt

Danish

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Middle Low German bl?t (“bare”), from Proto-Germanic *blautaz (“void, emaciated, soft”), cognate with German bloß (“bare”) and Danish blød (“soft”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?b?l?d?]

Adjective

blot (plural and definite singular attributive blotte)

1. (dated) mere, very

Adverb

blot

1. (slightly formal) only, merely

Synonyms

• kun, bare

Etymology 2

Borrowed Old Norse blót, from Proto-Germanic *bl?t?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?b?lo?d?]

Noun

blot

1. a sacrifice (especially a blood sacrifice by heathens)

Etymology 3

See the etymology of the main entry.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?b?l?d?]

Verb

blot

1. imperative of blotte

Etymology 4

See the etymology of the main entry.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?b?lo?d?]

Verb

blot

1. imperative of blote

Low German

Etymology

From Middle Low German bl?t (“bare”), from Proto-Germanic *blautaz (“void, emaciated, soft”), cognate with German bloß (“bare”) and Danish blød (“soft”). Spelling variant of bloot.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?blo??t]

Adverb

blot

1. only, merely

Synonyms

• blots, man

References

• Der neue SASS: Plattdeutsches Wörterbuch, Plattdeutsch - Hochdeutsch, Hochdeutsch - Plattdeutsch. Plattdeutsche Rechtschreibung, sixth revised edition (2011, ?ISBN, Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster)

Luxembourgish

Adjective

blot

1. neuter nominative of blo
2. neuter accusative of blo

Old English

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *bl?t?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /blo?t/

Noun

bl?t n

1. a sacrifice, especially a blood sacrifice by heathens

English

Etymology

From Middle English pollucion, from Anglo-Norman pollutiun, Middle French pollution, pollucion, and their source, post-classical Latin poll?ti? (“defilement, desecration; nocturnal emission”) (4th century), from the participial stem of pollu? (“to soil, defile, contaminate”), from por- (“before”) + -lu? (“to smear”), related to lutum (“mud”) and lu?s (“filth”). Compare Ancient Greek ???? (lûma, “filth, dirt, disgrace”) and ????? (lûmax, “rubbish, refuse”), Old Irish loth (“mud, dirt”), Lithuanian lutynas (“pool, puddle”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /p??l(j)u???n/
• (US) IPA^(key): /p??lu??n/

Noun

pollution (countable and uncountable, plural pollutions)

1. (now rare) The desecration of something holy or sacred; defilement, profanation. [from 14th c.]
   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, ch. XII:

     Men who attend the Altar, and should most / Endevor Peace: thir strife pollution brings / Upon the Temple it self […].

   • 1869, Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad:

     [T]he most gallant knights that ever wielded sword wasted their lives away in a struggle to seize it and hold it sacred from infidel pollution.

2. (now archaic) The ejaculation of semen outside of sexual intercourse, especially a nocturnal emission. [from 14th c.]
   • 1839, Robley Dunglison, Medical Lexicon, Blanchard, page 492:

     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.

3. Moral or spiritual corruption; impurity, degradation, defilement. [from 15th c.]
   • 1813, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice:

     She condescended to wait on them at Pemberley, in spite of that pollution which its woods had received.

4. Physical contamination, now especially the contamination of the environment by harmful substances, or by disruptive levels of noise, light etc. [from 18th c.]
   • 2018, Matthew Taylor, The Guardian, 13 July:

     Schools across the country are moving to ban the school run amid growing concern about the devastating impact of air pollution on young people’s health.

   • 2019, George Monbiot, Cars are killing us. Within 10 years, we must phase them out in the Guardian.

     Pollution now kills three times as many people worldwide as Aids, tuberculosis and malaria combined.

5. Something that pollutes; a pollutant. [from 17th c.]

Synonyms

• soilage
• (masturbation): self-pollution

Antonyms

• conservation
• purity

Derived terms

Related terms

• polluter

Translations

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin poll?ti?. Synchronically, from polluer +? -tion.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p?.ly.sj??/

Noun

pollution f (plural pollutions)

1. pollution

Synonyms

• profanation
• souillure

Related terms

• polluant
• pollutif

Further reading

• “pollution” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).