Meaning & use
Pollute
Last updated
To contaminate an environment, especially with harmful or poisonous substances.
See it in a sentence
Factories along the river were fined for polluting the water with industrial waste.
Idling cars pollute the air in already congested cities.
A note on using this word
Originally meant simply 'to make unclean' or 'defile,' before narrowing to its modern environmental sense.
Words with a similar meaning
Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.
Words with an opposite meaning
purifycleanse
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