as in contaminated
containing foreign or lower-grade substances
called in to clean up the polluted stream
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
as in poisoned
to make unfit for use by the addition of something harmful or undesirable
outmoded factories polluting the air
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of polluted
Karl Schneider, IndyStar, 6 Jan. 2026
Webster believes that Bongino and Patel have become polluted by the same swamp that Trump has again and again vowed to clean up.
—Jamie Thompson, The Atlantic, 6 Jan. 2026
But many other cities were blanketed in polluted air that led to respiratory illnesses and millions of early deaths across the nation over the decades.
—James Salzman, The Conversation, 5 Jan. 2026
This may be the most lead polluted place on Earth.
—Marc Silver, NPR, 23 Dec. 2025
In Miami-Dade County, officials were forced to halt implementation of a new rule designed to help with flooding and runoff of polluted water into ailing Biscayne Bay, known as the impervious surface ordinance, due to SB 180 concerns.
—Ryan Ballogg, Miami Herald, 21 Dec. 2025
Built for disaster and emergency settings, the system relies on a reactor, floating foam cubes, and microorganisms to clean polluted water.
—Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 18 Dec. 2025
For decades, Native tribes in the basin—the Yurok, Karuk, and Hoopa—had pressed for the hydroelectric dams on the Klamath to come down and for the polluted river to be restored.
—The Editors, Outside, 15 Dec. 2025
Exposure to the polluted water can lead to illness.
—Jeanine Santucci, USA Today, 11 Dec. 2025
Michaëla De Lacaze Mohrmann, Artforum, 1 Jan. 2026
Their natural environment is being polluted and burned down, and people still hunt them for their meat.
—Maria Azzurra Volpe, MSNBC Newsweek, 21 Nov. 2025
If it’s harvested from an area that’s been polluted, there’s a possibility it could be contaminated with unsafe minerals like mercury or arsenic.
—Caroline C. Boyle, USA Today, 4 Nov. 2025
He was reared in an environment polluted with drugs, gangs and violence.
—Grethel Aguila, Miami Herald, 30 Oct. 2025
That includes farmers who have had sludge from water treatment plants spread on their land containing PFAS, fire departments, airports and municipalities, people who own land that was polluted by PFAS originating from another nearby property or waste facilities that accepted PFAS.
—Laura Schulte, jsonline.com, 17 Oct. 2025
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, women in cobalt-mining regions have reported reproductive-health concerns such as miscarriages and birth defects; cobalt mining has also polluted croplands.
—Scott W. Stern, The Atlantic, 2 Oct. 2025
Directed by series veteran David Silverman, the movie’s plot saw Springfield being confined under a massive glass dome after Homer accidentally polluted the town’s lake.
—Rebecca Rubin, Variety, 29 Sep. 2025
The story there was that Homer had accidentally polluted the town's water supply, and the Simpson family members were declared fugitives by the Environmental Protection Agency.
—Raechal Shewfelt, Entertainment Weekly, 29 Sep. 2025
Adjective
The state also has an above average number of polluted waterways and more coal ash ponds — small, toxic water bodies near coal plants where poisonous refuse is discarded — than any other state.
—Verb
Highways, viaducts, giant interchanges, and a major Metro junction viciously mutilated São Paulo’s downtown in the 1960s and ’70s, demoting it from a popular residential area to a commercial transfer hub, overcrowded and polluted by day but forlorn by night.
—Recent Examples of Synonyms for polluted
Adjective
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Major soil removal underway Meerbott said restoring the park has become a priority as crews work to remove contaminated soil.—
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Leptospirosis can also be found in contaminated water or soil and is spread by rodents.—
Verb
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Residents are also urged to watch children closely while playing outdoors where mushrooms grow and to keep pets away, since animals can be poisoned as well.—
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In June 2024, Bich poisoned a fourth relative — a teenager — who survived after collapsing and being rushed to the hospital, where doctors discovered cyanide in his stomach and alerted the family, the outlets reported.—
Verb
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Lawyers also argued the conviction should be overturned because the verdict was tainted by the media attention and due to faulty instructions to the jury.—
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Just as one bite of a cookie might not happen to contain chocolate chips, one small sample of drugs might not include fentanyl even if the larger supply is tainted, the agency’s website explains.—
Adjective
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The state tried to incorporate as many voices as possible, which is admirable in some ways, but diluted rural hospitals’ message, Stansbury said.—
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As for baking soda, the greatest success was observed when mixing diluted baking soda with horticulture oil.—
Adjective
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Second, a dilute hydrochloric acid is used to dissolve the remaining lithium and the transition metals—nickel, cobalt, and manganese.—
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For example, Wilson’s team is exploring whether dilute acids speed up weathering.—
Adjective
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The company in 2020 pleaded guilty to distributing adulterated ice-cream products and agreed to pay a fine over the outbreak.—
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And while most of those overdoses involved the illicit synthetic opioid fentanyl, experts say that an adulterated and contaminated drug supply is also leading to deaths.—
Adjective
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Participants can sculpt with air-dry clay, paint on canvas, or craft a collage or mixed-media piece such as a design vision board.—
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The experience left them with mixed emotions.—
Adjective
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Kanto practitioners believe that women cannot participate because, according to Japan's Shinto religion, women's blood from menstruation and childbirth is considered impure for the purpose of religious rituals.—
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Their inclusion underlines the wider context of the film, provoking the audience to hold these pure and impure images together.—
Cite this Entry
“Polluted.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/polluted. Accessed 12 Jan. 2026.
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