different between pollution vs unwholesomeness

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).

English

Etymology

From unwholesome +? -ness.

Noun

unwholesomeness (uncountable)

1. The state or quality of being unwholesome.

Translations

References

• unwholesomeness in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.