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Sully vs Pollution - What's the difference?

sully | pollution |

As a verb sully

is to soil or stain; to dirty.

As a noun pollution is

the act of polluting or the state of being polluted, especially the contamination of the environment by harmful substances.

sully

English

Alternative forms

* (l)

Verb

  • to soil or stain; to dirty
  • He did not wish to sully his hands with gardening.
  • * Roscommon
  • statues sullied yet with sacrilegious smoke
  • to damage or corrupt
  • He did not wish to sully his reputation with an ill-mannered comment.
  • * Atterbury
  • no spots to sully the brightness of this solemnity
  • To become soiled or tarnished.
  • * Francis Bacon
  • Silvering will sully and canker more than gilding.

    pollution

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The act of polluting or the state of being polluted, especially the contamination of the environment by harmful substances.
  • * {{quote-book, year=2006, author=, title=Internal Combustion
  • , chapter=1 citation , passage=If successful, Edison and Ford—in 1914—would move society away from the
  • Something that pollutes; a pollutant.
  • (archaic) Physical defilement.
  • (medicine, obsolete) The emission of semen at other times than in sexual intercourse.
  • * 1839 , Robley Dunglison, Medical Lexicon'', Blanchard, page 492 defines ''POLLUTION as:
  • The excretion of seminal liquor or sperm, at other times than during coition. 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.

    Synonyms

    * soilage * (masturbation) self-pollution

    Antonyms

    * conservation * purity

    Derived terms

    * air pollution * light pollution * noise pollution * self-pollution * soil pollution * water pollution