1. To make foul or unclean, especially with harmful chemical or waste products: Wastes from the factory near the river had polluted it to a dangerous degree.
2. To make someone morally or spiritually impure: The excessive violence presented in films are believed to pollute the minds of people, especially the younger viewers.
3. Etymology: borrowed from Latin pollutus, polluere,"to soil" or "to defile" from pol-, por-, "before" + luere, "to smear"; related to lutum, "mud". dirty; to soil, befoul.