Skip to main content
PlainSpell

pollution

/pəˈluʃən/noun

pollution is spelled P-O-L-L-U-T-I-O-N: 9 letters and 3 syllables. It appears 16 times per million words in written English, the 5,121st most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, pollution means “Physical contamination, now especially the contamination of the environment by harmful substances, or by disruptive levels of noise, light etc” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of pollution is pollutions.

How many letters and syllables are in pollution?

Letters9: P-O-L-L-U-T-I-O-N
Syllables3 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing16 times per million words; the 5,121st most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Rhymes with

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is pollution?

Pollution appears 16 times per million words in written English, the 5,121st most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce pollution?

  • UK /pəˈljuːʃən/
  • UK /pəˈluːʃən/
  • US /pəˈluʃən/

Pollution has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-pollution.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

What rhymes with pollution?

The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as pollution from its last stressed vowel (/uʃən/):

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of pollution

  • pollutions plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does pollution mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    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.

  2. 2

    Something that pollutes; a pollutant.

  3. 3

    archaicThe desecration of something holy or sacred; defilement, profanation.

  4. 4

    archaicThe ejaculation of semen outside of sexual intercourse, especially a nocturnal emission.

  5. 5

    Moral or spiritual corruption; impurity, degradation, defilement.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Pollution in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchpollution (archaic: emission of semen at other times than…), défilement (archaic: defilement, corruption)
Portuguesepolução (archaic: emission of semen at other times than…), poluição (archaic: defilement, corruption), poluente (something that pollutes; pollutant – see also…)
GermanVerunreinigung, Verschmutzung, Umweltverschmutzung, Pollution (the contamination of the environment by harmful…)
Spanishpolución, contaminación (the contamination of the environment by harmful…)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does pollution come from?

From Middle English pollucioun, pollucion (“desecration, impurity”), from Anglo-Norman pollutiun, Middle French pollution, pollucion, and their source, post-classical Latin pollūtiō (“defilement, desecration; nocturnal emission”) (4th century), from the participial stem of polluō (“to soil, defile, contaminate”), from por- (“before”) + -luō (“to smear”), related to lutum (“mud”) and luēs (“filth”). Compare Ancient Greek λῦμα (lûma, “filth, dirt, disgrace”) and λῦμαξ (lûmax, “rubbish, refuse”), Old Irish loth (“mud, dirt”), Lithuanian lutynas (“pool, puddle”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after pollution