pollution

noun

1. (uncountable, usually)Physical contamination, now especially the contamination of the environment by harmful substances, or by disruptive levels of noise, light etc.

   “Pollution levels are almost always higher in cities rather than the countryside, what with the cars, industry and so on.”

   “If successful, Edison and Ford—in 1914—would move society away from the[…]hazards of gasoline cars: air and water pollution, noise and noxiousness, constant coughing and the undeniable rise in cancers caused by smoke exhaust particulates.”

   “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.”

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

   “"Flying only looks like a bargain because the cost of pollution is so cheap."”

2. (uncountable, usually)Something that pollutes; a pollutant.
3. (archaic, uncountable, usually)The desecration of something holy or sacred; defilement, profanation.

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

   “[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.”

4. (archaic, uncountable, usually)The ejaculation of semen outside of sexual intercourse, especially a nocturnal emission.

   “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.”

   “According to Billuart and other theologians, pollution in sleep is not sin, unless voluntarily caused; if, however, it begins in sleep, and is completed in the half-waking state, with a sense of pleasure, it is a venial sin.”

5. (uncountable, usually)Moral or spiritual corruption; impurity, degradation, defilement.

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