pollutant

English

Etymology

Etymology tree

English pollute

Proto-Indo-European *-onts

Latin -ns

Latin -āns

Old French -antbor.

Proto-Indo-European *-onts

Proto-Germanic *-ndz

Proto-West Germanic *-andī

Old English -ende

Middle English -ant

English -ant

English pollutant

From pollute + -ant.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pəˈl(j)uːtənt/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

pollutant (plural pollutants)

1. A foreign substance that makes something dirty, or impure, especially waste from human activities.

   Synonyms: adulterant, contamination, pollution; see also Thesaurus:contaminant

   • 1987 January 20, “Airborne Pollutants”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN:

     Acid rain forms when water in the atmosphere condenses on particles containing acid-forming pollutants, such as sulfate produced by the burning of fossil fuels and nitrogen oxides from automobile exhausts.

Derived terms

• agropollutant
• air pollutant
• antipollutant
• macropollutant
• micropollutant
• multipollutant
• nonpollutant
• organopollutant
• persistent organic pollutant
• superpollutant

Translations

something that pollutes

• Bulgarian: замърсител m (zamǎrsitel)
• Catalan: contaminant m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 污染物 (zh) (wūrǎnwù)

• Czech: škodlivina (cs) f
• Dutch: vervuiler (nl) m
• Esperanto: poluaĵo
• Finnish: saaste (fi), epäpuhtaus (fi)
• French: polluant (fr) m
• German: Schadstoff (de) m, umweltgefährlicher Stoff m
• Hungarian: szennyező anyag
• Indonesian: polutan (id)
• Interlingua: polluente
• Italian: sostanza inquinante f, inquinante (it) m
• Japanese: 汚染物質 (ja) (おせんぶっしつ, osen-busshitsu)
• Korean: 오염물질 (oyeommuljil)
• Māori: parawhakakino, parawhakaparu, parakino, paratakakino
• Marshallese: baijin
• Polish: substancja zanieczyszczająca środowisko f
• Portuguese: poluente (pt) m
• Russian: загрязни́тель (ru) m (zagrjaznítelʹ), загрязня́ющее вещество́ n (zagrjaznjájuščeje veščestvó)
• Spanish: contaminante m
• Ukrainian: забру́днювач m (zabrúdnjuvač)

Further reading

• pollutant on Wikipedia.Wikipedia