Pollutant

//pəˈl(j)uːtənt// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

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

    "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."

  2. 2
    waste matter that contaminates the water or air or soil wordnet

Example

More examples

"We can conclude that this phenomenon is not related to either pollutant."

Etymology

From pollute + -ant.

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.