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Pollute   /pəlˈut/   Listen
Pollute

verb
(past & past part. polluted; pres. part. polluting)
1.
Make impure.  Synonyms: contaminate, foul.



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"Pollute" Quotes from Famous Books



... She woos the gentle air To hide her guilty front with innocent snow; And on her naked shame, Pollute with sinful blame, The saintly veil of maiden white to throw; Confounded, that her Maker's eyes Should look so near ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... from a stream flowing across his own land, has the right to divert such a stream from its natural channel—providing it is not a navigable or floatable stream—but in so doing, he must return it to its own channel for lower riparian owners. The generation of water-power does not pollute the water, nor does it diminish the water in quantity, therefore the farmer is infringing on no other owner's rights in using the ...
— Electricity for the farm - Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water - wheel or farm engine • Frederick Irving Anderson

... of his father Henry; that he was a renegade, whose treachery had occasioned the loss of Acre; and he concluded by a solemn oath, that he would cause him to be drawn to pieces by wild horses, if he should ever venture to pollute the Christian camp by his presence. Philip attempted to intercede in favour of the Marquis, and throwing down his glove, offered to become a pledge for his fidelity to the Christians; but his offer was rejected, and he was obliged to give way to ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... yearly occurrence in the colony, and are justly held in abhorrence by the pious and thinking portion of the population of either denomination. The government has for many years vainly endeavoured to put them down, but they still pollute with their moral leprosy the free institutions of the country, and effectually prevent any friendly feeling which might grow up between the members of these rival and ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... first both these sons were in a false and unsafe position. Their characters were not the same,—were not similar: they differed in thought and word; but the difference, in as far as their answers were concerned, indicated only varieties of sin. Legion is the name of the spirits that possess and pollute the fallen; but all the legion do not dwell in every man. Different temptations tinge different persons with different hues of guilt. At the time when the father uttered his command, the character of the first son ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... they condescend to interchange with them and the other sects, the civilities of preaching freely and frequently in each other's meeting-houses. In Rhode Island, on the other hand, no sectarian preacher will permit an Unitarian to pollute his desk. In our Richmond there is much fanaticism, but chiefly among the women. They have their night meetings and praying parties, where, attended by their priests, and sometimes by a hen-pecked husband, they pour forth the effusions of their love to Jesus, in terms as amatory ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... through the weakness of the flesh and the power of temptation. Satan works through the flesh to pollute the spirit. In order to be one with us in our temptation, and perfect Himself as an experimental sympathizer, our mediator must be tempted in all points like as we are, that He may know how we feel under temptation. This demanded that He take upon Himself not the nature of angels, but that of ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen

... young men and women! if you grow up into middle life not Christians, then should you ever become so, you will have habits to fight with, and remembrances that will smart and sting; and some of you, perhaps, remembrances that will pollute, even though you are conscious that you are forgiven. It is a better thing not to know the depths of evil than to know them and to have been raised from them. You will escape infinite sorrows by an early cleaving to Christ ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... war shall echo thro' our mountains, Till not one hateful link remains Of slavery's lingering chains; Till not one tyrant tread our plains, Nor traitor lip pollute our fountains. No! never till that glorious day Shall Lusitania's sons be gay, Or hear, oh Peace, thy welcome lay Resounding ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... be their personal cleanliness in appearance, their moral impurity, according to all accounts, is most gross and detestable. We shall not pollute our page by the slightest mention of the abominable gratifications in which they are said to indulge, contrary to the most ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... the corners creep Their comrades, dire Remorse and pallid Fear; Before them fumes a mist of Acheron; Perplexingly around the murderer's brow The eternal contemplation of the past Rolls in its cloudy circles. Once again The grisly band, commission'd to destroy, Pollute earth's beautiful and heaven-sown fields, From which an ancient curse had banish'd them. Their rapid feet the fugitive pursue; They only pause ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... shall these poor, despised, persecuted creatures have at my hands and on the road. The man that would do otherwise, that would obey this law to the peril of his soul and the loss of his manhood, were he brother, son, or father, shall never pollute my hand with grasp of hideous friendship, nor cast his ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague

... winds their quarrel try, Contending for the kingdom of the sky, South, east, and west, on airy coursers borne; The whirlwind gathers, and the woods are torn: Then Nereus strikes the deep; the billows rise, And, mix'd with ooze and sand, pollute the skies. The troops we squander'd first again appear From several quarters, and enclose the rear. They first observe, and to the rest betray, Our diff'rent speech; our borrow'd arms survey. Oppress'd with odds, we fall; Coroebus first, At Pallas' altar, by Peneleus pierc'd. ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... place where they could settle their personal differences without harm to unoffending bystanders, but warring nations cannot, no matter how earnestly they try, avoid injury to neutrals. As the nauseous odors of a slaughterhouse, carried on the breeze, pollute the air in every direction, so the evil influences emanating from these wide-extended battlefields taint the atmosphere of the whole political world. War is an international nuisance. Nearly every neutral nation finds new domestic problems thrust upon ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... she alone sought {an excuse for} delay. Her garment was removed as she hesitated, which being put off, her fault was exposed with her naked body. Cynthia said to her, in confusion, and endeavoring to conceal her stomach with her hands, "Begone afar hence! and pollute not the sacred springs;" and she ordered her ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... served to lead his friends into inextricable difficulties. When old, he was loathsome and contemptible to both friend and foe. His wife loathed him, and for the most terrible of reasons; she did not pollute his couch, for to do that was impossible—he had made it so vile; but she betrayed it, inviting to it not only Alfieri the Filthy, but the coarsest grooms. Dr. King, the warmest and almost last adherent of his family, said that there was not a vice or crime of which he was not ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... proved that not with warring Rome Barbarians may grapple. Then arose Immeasurable carnage: here the sword, There stood the victim, and the victor's arm Wearied of slaughter. Oh, that to thy plains, Pharsalia, might suffice the crimson stream From hosts barbarian, nor other blood Pollute thy fountains' sources! these alone Shall clothe thy pastures with the bones of men! Or if thy fields must run with Roman blood Then spare the nations who in times to ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... in warfare are renowned both near and far, And thy race and children's slaughter will methinks pollute ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous

... women he desired, and oppressed the poor and the rich, so that many men cursed him privately. But for all that Ba Ahmad was a wise man and very strong. He saw the might of the French in the East, and of the Bashadors who pollute Tanjah in the North; he remembered the ships that came to the waters in the West, and he knew that the men of these ships want to seize all the foreign lands, until at last they rule the earth even as they rule the sea. Against all the wise men of the Nazarenes who dwell in Tanjah the wazeer ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan

... do what I found it not very easy to endure. They pollute the tea-table by plates piled with large slices of cheshire cheese, which mingles its less grateful odours with the ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson

... it must be owned, this idea of a man cherishing emotions in his breast of so horrible a nature that he could neither tell them to any human being, nor keep them in their plenitude and intensity within the breast where they had their germ, and so was forced to fling them forth upon the night, to pollute and put fear into the atmosphere, and that people should breathe-in somewhat of horror from an unknown source, and be affected with nightmare, and dreams in which they were startled at ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... writer. He had never entered one of those fetid slums of a great city in which, too often, murder is done, never sickened with the physical nausea of death in its most revolting aspect, when some unhappy wretch's foul body serves only to further pollute ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy

... emancipated. Love-intrigues of all sorts were constantly in progress. The ballet-dancers (-mimae-) were quite a match for those of the present day in the variety of their pursuits and the skill with which they followed them out; their primadonnas, Cytheris and the like, pollute even the pages of history. But their, as it were, licensed trade was very materially injured by the free art of the ladies of aristocratic circles. Liaisons in the first houses had become so frequent, that only a scandal altogether exceptional could make them the subject ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... with the moral mischief which many of Beranger's songs are calculated to produce; for, circulating freely as they do in French households, they exhibit pictures of nastiness and vice, which are enough to pollute ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... said, her deep, somber eyes seeming to pass through and through the mountain of flesh she was addressing. "I take small comfort in the thought that he had no time to suffer bodily pain. You will suffer—later." Bill gazed at her wonderingly. "Liar!—cheat!—you pollute the earth. You thought to cozen that poor, harmless old man out of his property—out of me. You thought to ruin him as you have ruined others. Your efforts will avail you nothing. From the moment Bill discovered the ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum

... to have gathered all confusedly together, headed by their chiefs and countenanced by the marabouts, to destroy the Infidels who were come to pollute their country; but, undoubtedly, the major part were excited against us by ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson

... they are all undemonstrable by language (nirabhilapyas'unyata); (6) that there cannot be any knowledge about them except that which is brought about by the long-standing defects of desires which pollute all our vision; (7) that things are also non-existent in the sense that we affirm them to be in a particular place and time in which ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta

... the river. By it old India, self-centred, exclusive, introspective, was brought into the modern world; compelled, one might say, by these great spans to admit the modern world and its conveniences, in spite of protest that the railway bridge would pollute the sacred stream. Crossing the bridge, our eyes are fixed on the outstanding feature of Benares—city of hundreds of Hindu temples. What is it? Not a Hindu temple, but a splendid Mahomedan mosque whose minarets overlook the Hindu city, calling the ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison

... at the King, who is pale with remorse]. Surely this is not like my husband; yet who can it be that dares pollute by the pressure of his hand my child, whose amulet should protect him from a ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... no doubt that Abel, when he saw his brother rising up against him, entreated and implored him not to pollute himself with this awful sin. However, a mind beset by Satan pays no regard to entreaties, nor heeds uplifted hands, but as a father's admonition had been disregarded, so now the brother is spurned as he pleads upon ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther

... nor dare to pollute me with your touch!" exclaimed Emily, shaking off his hand as though it had ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton

... 'it was the officers she feared; and at any rate why does that beldam still dare to pollute the island with her presence? And O Cora,' I exclaimed, remembering my grief, 'what matter all these troubles ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson

... thunderbolts, or beating their breasts, or being mourned over, or in enslavement to mankind, or exiled, or, for foul and shameful unions, taking the forms of animals. Whence men, taking occasion by the gods themselves, took heart to pollute themselves in all manner of uncleanness. So an horrible darkness overspread our race in those times, and 'there was none that did understand ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus

... whatever we are an' whatever we were, we're better than the people that have taken our place. We didn't tear up the earth an' cover it with slag-heaps or turn good rivers into stinkin' sewers. We didn't pollute the rivers with filth an' poison the fish!" He turned suddenly to Henry and said in a quieter tone, "You've never ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine

... your confidence, forever to establish credit with your highness, I will first of all reveal the name of that murderer who this night dared to pollute your palace with an old man's blood. Prince, bend your ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... stones, and whose firm, but slender bars, were of purest gold.—"Favoured mortal!" (the speaker was beside me)—"favoured beyond even thine own conception, know that thou art permitted to behold the Elfin Paradise—the true, the veritable Fairy Land. Pollute it not by the tone of mortal speech; to us are thy thoughts not unknown, and partially are we permitted to gratify thy desire for information. Thinkest thou—so indeed hath man taught thee—that this ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 480, Saturday, March 12, 1831 • Various

... name of sacrifices, and designed to make the gods propitious. "What greater evil," cries Lactantius, "could they inflict in their most violent displeasure, than thus to deprive their adorers of all sense of humanity, to make them cut the throats of their own children, and pollute their sacrilegious hands with ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... thirsty, was sure to find it full of leaves, twigs and earth. He bore this affront for some time but at last his patience was exhausted. There-after he did his drinking at the spring, approaching it always by a round-about way lest the raccoon discover it and pollute its clear water. The Hermit watched the two animals with amusement, but he did not interfere. Gradually the feud was forgotten. Indeed, before many weeks had passed, the two had become firm friends, though Ringtail still ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer

... that my father loves revenge far more than his only child; and that he is willing to peril her soul by defiling it with wicked coquetry. Now I understand why it is that such a profligate as Count Podstadsky has been suffered to pollute our home ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... oration, then Apollyon did begin. 'My opinion,' said he, 'concerning this matter, is, that we go on fair and softly, not doing things in a hurry. Let our friends in Mansoul go on still to pollute and defile it, by seeking to draw it yet more into sin (for there is nothing like sin to devour Mansoul). If this be done, and it takes effect, Mansoul, of itself, will leave off to watch, to petition, or anything else that should tend to her security and ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan

... all that I were opening Christ's eye and Christ's ear and Christ's mouth; and let me thrust in nothing on Him as He dwells within me that will make Him ashamed or angry, or that will defile and pollute Him. That thought, O God, I feel that it will often arrest me in time to come in the very act of sin. It will make me start back before I make Christ cruel or false, a wine-bibber, a glutton, or unclean. I feel at this moment as if I shall yet come to ask Him at every meal, and at every other opportunity ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte

... to begin, Hugh. 'Too,' Jack says. That tells the whole story. I shall pollute his life also. I shall stand, not for what I think I am, but for what I am, in that child's sight. I reasoned it out when you were so ill, and I thought this was justifiable, and oh, Hugh! I've dragged myself down in my own sight and I've dragged you down with me. It isn't enough for me to seem ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... great and noble work of his against Porphyry, in not less than thirty books, with its vast collection of arguments. He would have been among the master-builders of the Church, had not the profane lust of heretical curiosity incited him to strike out something new, to pollute withal his labours throughout with the taint of leprosy, so that his teaching was rather a temptation to the Church ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... it; but I have promised to tell you the truth, and I will do it honestly, let it cost me what it may. I will not try to screen myself behind the plea of compulsion from a master; for it was not so. Neither can I plead ignorance or thoughtlessness. For years, my master had done his utmost to pollute my mind with foul images, and to destroy the pure principles inculcated by my grandmother, and the good mistress of my childhood. The influences of slavery had had the same effect on me that they had on other young ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)

... qualified also with a blameless conversation. Their conversation must be as becometh the gospel, otherwise they are not meet for communion with the gospel church. Carnal walking will not suit spiritual temples: for they will greatly pollute and defile them, and stain and obscure their beauty and glory. Therefore they must not be brawlers and contentious persons, covetous and worldly-minded, vain and frothy. They must not be froward and ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London

... Bellerstown to offer this high behest to the poor parson, whose ready compliance was expected, as a matter of course. But he calmly and peremptorily refused the proffered vote, and intimated that he held it derogatory to the sacred nature of his office to pollute himself with such politics, and inconsistent with every principle of honour, morality, and religion, to take an oath, as required by law, that he was possessed of a landed estate, while, in truth, he had no earthly title to an inch of it. This scrupulosity gave mortal offence ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... his face bowed down upon his hands. "You could not go on as you are doing if you loved her, for love allows no meaner, no unhallowed fires to pollute her vestal flame. Your love must be a pretence—a thing of the past. It was only possible, Kennedy, when you were worthier than now ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... inequality of the style!—Permit me to acknowledge to you what I have acknowledged to others, that it excites my exhaustless wonder, that Mrs. Piozzi, the child of genius, the pupil of Johnson, should pollute, with the vulgarisms of unpolished conversation, her animated pages!—that, while she frequently displays her power of commanding the most chaste and beautiful style imaginable, she should generally use ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi

... entered by needles' eyes of apertures, congested with hellish, heaven-scaling barracks, reeking with refuse and evil odours, inhabited promiscuously by poverty and prostitution, worse than the worst slums of London itself—how could they have been left so long to pollute the fairest and well-nigh the wealthiest city in the kingdom? "Do you wonder Edinburgh is renowned for its medical schools?" asked the Professor grimly, as he darted in and out among those foul alleys, explaining how he was demolishing this and reconstructing ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill

... sweetness, incorrupt; the rest (They noise it unashamed) are stuff gone sour; The world has meddled with them. They have broacht The wine that had pleas'd God to flocking thirst Of flies and wasps, to fears and worldly sorrows. Nay, they are poured out into the dung of the world, And drench, pollute, the fortune of their state, When they should have no fortune but themselves And the God in them, and be sealed therein. Ah, my sweet soul, that knoweth its own sweetness, Where only love may drink, and only—alas!— The ghost of love. But I ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie

... society, not to offend those with whom he converses by his superiority; and whatever be the native spirit of a mind, it is evident that this perpetual adaptation of itself to others, this watchfulness against its own rising feelings, this studied sympathy with mediocrity, must pollute and impoverish the ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... he from his chamber; With no friends would he converse, Lest the breath of his dishonor Should pollute them with its curse." Ancient Spanish ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber

... might at first suppose. In thinking of the evils endured by society from malevolent passions of individuals, we are apt to enumerate only the more dreadful instances of crime: but what are the few murders which unhappily pollute the soil of this Christian land—what, we ask, is the suffering they occasion, what their demoralizing tendency—when compared with the daily effusions of ill-humour which sadden, may we not fear, many thousand homes? We believe that an incalculably greater ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous

... honourable names that perished in their cause—though he cursed "the butcher, Cumberland," and the bloody spirit which commanded the heads of the good and the heroic to be stuck where they would affright the passer-by, and pollute the air—he had no desire to see the splendid fabric of constitutional freedom, which the united genius of all parties had raised, thrown wantonly down. His Jacobitism influenced, not his head, but his heart, and gave a mournful hue to many of his ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... has his revenge. Even the winds are his messengers, and they serve him in these hours of darkness. There is not a drop of Tom's corrupted blood but propagates infection and contagion somewhere. It shall pollute, this very night, the choice stream (in which chemists on analysis would find the genuine nobility) of a Norman house, and his Grace shall not be able to say nay to the infamous alliance. There is not an atom of Tom's slime, not a cubic inch of any pestilential gas in which ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... of my plighted lord? If guilt pollute him, as unless mine ear Deceive me in the purport of thy word, Thou mean'st t' imply—kind spirit rest ...
— Zophiel - A Poem • Maria Gowen Brooks

... Dr. Bartlett!—I hope that no woman who is not quite given up to dishonour, will pollute the sacred word, by affixing ideas to it, that cannot be connected with it. A friend is one of the highest characters that one human creature can shine in to another. There may be love, that though ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson

... of the Delta, the epizootie, had done its dread work. Annually this plague among the beasts plays havoc with the Nile, its surroundings and inhabitants. As the animals die of the disease, they are either left lying about on the banks to rot, decay, and pollute the air with devastating microbes, or are thrown into the water. It is then the hot sun does its work, and both the atmosphere and water ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld

... unfrequently destroys them. Should any fatal case occur, the coffin may on no account be carried out through the gates; it must be lifted over or sometimes through a breach in the wall. Death must not pollute the great entrance. At the end of the third trial, the first batch of those who have completed their essays is honored with the firing of guns, the bows of the officials, and the ministry of a band of music. Three weeks of anxious waiting will ensue before a huge crowd will assemble ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various

... water was reverenced. Sacrifice was offered to rivers, lakes, and fountains, the victim being brought near to them and then slain, while great care was taken that no drop of their blood should touch the water and pollute it. No refuse was allowed to be cast into a river, nor was it even lawful to wash one's hands in one. Reverence for earth was shown by sacrifice, and by abstention from the usual ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson

... inhabitants are widely scattered. The residence lots are mostly 50 x 190 feet; and the streets and avenues vary from 80 to 125 feet in width. There are therefore none of the objections of a city in respect to overcrowding, and no manufactories or smelters to pollute the air. The death-rate, exclusive of death from consumption, is only 5.6 per 1000; from zymotic diseases, ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money

... the northern portion of the Island. A Municipal sweeper lurched across the open and proceeded to spend twenty minutes in brushing the grating of a drain, leaving the accumulated filth of the adjoining gutter to fester and pollute the surroundings; and two elderly cooly-women, each carrying a phenomenal head-load of dung- cakes, becoming suddenly aware of the presence of troops and thereby struck with terror, collided violently with one another and shot the entire contents ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.

... god-abhorred? Wretch whom no sojourner, no citizen May harbor or address, whom all are bound To harry from their homes. And this same curse Was laid on me, and laid by none but me. Yea with these hands all gory I pollute The bed of him I slew. Say, am I vile? Am I not utterly unclean, a wretch Doomed to be banished, and in banishment Forgo the sight of all my dearest ones, And never tread again my native earth; Or else to wed my mother and slay my sire, Polybus, who begat me and upreared? If one should ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles

... all but him. Oh! if there be one feeling which makes Love, even guilty Love, a god, it is the knowledge that in the midst of this breathing world he reigns aloof and alone; and that those who are occupied with his worship know nothing of the pettiness, the strife, the bustle which, pollute and agitate the ordinary inhabitants of earth! What was now to them, as they stood alone in the deep stillness of Nature, everything that had engrossed them before they had met and loved? Even in ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... may purge the terrestrial atmosphere from the poisons that infect it; that he may preserve the bodies of men from the corrupt influences that surround, and the maladies that afflict them; still more, that he may keep their souls pure from the malignant insinuations which pollute, and the gloomy images that obscure them; that he may restore its serenity to the Word, which false words of men fill with mourning and sadness; that he may satisfy the desires of the angels, who await from him the development of the marvels of ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... then, In very sooth Lord Jason? Get thee gone And quickly! Thou shalt not so much as set A foot upon my threshold, to pollute My humble dwelling! Thou didst bring but now Death to the daughter of my lord the King! Then seek not shelter at the meanest door Of any ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... this house to my name. For behold, I have accepted this house, and my name shall be here, and I will manifest myself to my people in mercy in this house, Yea, I will appear unto my servants, and speak unto them with mine own voice, if my people will keep my commandments, and do not pollute this holy house, Yea the hearts of thousands and tens of thousands shall greatly rejoice in consequence of the blessings which shall be poured out, and the endowment with which my servants have been endowed in this house; and the fame of this house shall spread to foreign ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... they understand not, as applying to a deity. Neither must our government any longer wink at such monstrous practices as that of children ejecting their dying parents, in their last struggles, from the shelter of their own roofs, on the plea that death would pollute their dwellings. Such compliances with Paganism, make Pagans of ourselves. Nor, again, ought the professed worship of devils to be tolerated, more than the Fetish worship, or the African witchcraft, was tolerated in the West Indies. Having, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... of two kindred peoples one of the principal events was the Feast of Virgins, given by Makatah. All young maidens of virtue and good repute were invited to be present; but woe to her who should dare to pollute the sacred feast! If her right to be there were challenged by any it meant a public disgrace. The two arrows and the red stone upon which the virgins took their oath of chastity were especially prepared for the occasion. Every girl was beautifully dressed, ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... I refused to ignore the evidence of my own senses, and determined to follow the dictates of reason instead of the dogmas of faith, and have, consequently, for the past fifteen years refused to pollute the blood of a single person ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various

... When heaven shall bid the swelling billows rage, And point vindictive lightnings at rebellion, Will not the patriot share the traitor's danger? Oh! could thy hand, unaided, free thy country, Nor mingled guilt pollute the ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson

... be a fool. Was this gift, too, O you most audacious of men, found among Caesar's papers? But I will take another opportunity to speak about the Leontine and the Campanian district; where he has stolen lands from the republic to pollute them with most infamous owners. For now, since I have sufficiently replied to all his charges, I must say a little about our corrector and censor himself. And yet I will not say all I could, in order that if I have often to battle with him I may always come to the contest with fresh arms; and the ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero

... thee, In dark and dreary prison-house confined, Cramped and diseased with long captivity, And hath divine Intelligence designed That noisome dungeon for her own restraint— By her own act to galling bonds consigned,— Self-doomed, with wilful purpose, to acquaint Herself with sin and sorrow, and pollute Aethereal essence with corporeal taint? How doth thy helpless misery confute That frantic boast of vain conceit, untaugh The paltriest of its ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton

... grief, incur a fatal doom; And so, swoln Niobe, comparing more Than he presumed, was trophaeed into stone. But are we therefore judged too extreme? Seems it no crime to enter sacred bowers, And hallowed places, with impure aspect, Most lewdly to pollute? Seems it no crime To brave a deity? Let mortals learn To make religion of offending heaven. And not at all to censure powers divine. To men this argument should stand for firm, A goddess did it, therefore it was good: ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson

... bear. She saw her faithful friends fall around her wasted by hunger or decimated by sickness. When all food was exhausted, dead and decomposed bodies were thrown into the castle that they might pollute the air she breathed. Otho with his troops was kept at Aversa; Louis of Anjou, the brother of the King of France whom she had named as her successor when she disinherited her nephew, never appeared ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... cities, they are covered with tiles. The kitchen is situated in the most retired part of the house. In the houses of the Brahmins, the kitchen-door is always barred, to prevent strangers from looking upon their earthen vessels; for if they should happen to see them, their look would pollute them to such a degree that they must be broken to pieces. The hearth is generally placed on the south-west side, which is said to be the side of the god of fire, because they say that ...
— Dr. Scudder's Tales for Little Readers, About the Heathen. • Dr. John Scudder

... direction of the Duke of Parma, in-order to be distributed throughout England, on the arrival in that kingdom of the Catholic troops. The well-known 'Admonition to the Nobility and People of England and Ireland' accused the Queen of every crime and vice which can pollute humanity; and was filled with foul details unfit for the public eye in ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... the large sums he had remitted from time to time for the use of Willy, were the produce of his successful depredations on British commerce. The instant Mr. Friend made the discovery, he refused to pollute his hands with moneys so obtained, and declined all further agency in the matter. Mason, however, contrived to remit through some other channel to the Davies's, with whom the boy had been placed; and a rapid improvement in their circumstances ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren

... the native a freedom from vice, or in any way attempting to palliate the many brutalising habits that pollute his character, I would still contend that, if stained with the excesses of unrestrained passions, he is still sometimes sensible to the better emotions of humanity. Many of the worst traits in his character are the result of necessity, or the force of custom—the better ones are implanted ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... heart.... A man has done all that he could; has worked strenuously, lovingly, honestly.... And honest hearts turn from him in disgust; honest faces burn with indignation at his name. 'Be gone! Away with you!' honest young voices scream at him. 'We have no need of you, nor of your work. You pollute our dwelling-places. You know us not and understand us not.... You ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev

... beyond philosophy; without speculating on the why, they felt that indulgence of animal passion did, in fact, pollute them, and so much the more, the more it was deliberate. Philosophy, gliding into Manicheism, divided the forces of the universe, giving the spirit to God, but declaring matter to be eternally and incurably evil; and looking forward to ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... life. And so our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin, Rom. vi. 3, 4, 6. And for our daily infirmities and escapes, whereby we pollute ourselves, his blood "is a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness," Zech. xiii. 1; and to this fountain he bringeth by the spirit of repentance, which he, as an exalted prince, bestoweth, Acts. ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)

... who formed bands of irregular troops in conjunction with the Turkish army, and these were outraged before they were slaughtered. A price was put on every Christian head, and in the Turkish retreat the corpses were thrust into the wells in order to pollute them. The excuse for this, as given by German apologists (not apologists, perhaps, so much as supporters and adherents of the policy), was that since behind the Turkish lines the country was populated by ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson

... outlined, much stricter than at Powderville, and a surveillance of the camps was constantly maintained. Not that there was any danger of escape, but to see that the herds occupied the country allotted to them, and did not pollute any more territory than was necessary. The Sponsilier Guards were given an easy day shift, and held a circle of admirers at night, recounting and living over again "the good old days." Visitors from either ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams

... is not from underground springs, from clean surface water or an occasional rising of the floods, but from the unclean wastes that in our present half-civilized state are constantly going out of our homes to poison and pollute the earth and air ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner

... I never Pollute my Productions with Invectives against the Fair. I am to the best of my poor Abilities, their constant Advocate. he, he, he, he. (laughing ...
— The Covent Garden Theatre, or Pasquin Turn'd Drawcansir • Charles Macklin

... live in the water of stagnant pools and marshes, and feed upon particles of decaying matter, and as their number is so very large, the amount they devour is considerable. By thus purifying the water they destroy the miasma which would otherwise arise and pollute the atmosphere to such an extent that no human being could breathe it with safety. The value of the work accomplished in tropical countries by these tiny scavengers is very great. It is estimated that the air of certain marshy regions would be so poisonous that no animal ...
— Harper's Young People, October 12, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... understand, that sancte, in the Japonian language, signified something too dishonest to be spoken. The Father declared, that the word in Latin had only a pure and pious meaning. Nevertheless, that it might not give scandal, nor pollute the imagination of the Japonians by an equivocal sound, he ordered the new Christians, from thenceforward, to use the word beate instead of it; and to say, Beate Petre, Beate Pauls, in the room of Sancte Petre, Sancte Paule. Concerning ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden

... counsels in the entire volume of Revelation, is the direction of the wise man: "Keep thy heart with all diligence." This is the fountain whence issue the streams which are to fertilize and gladden, or to pollute and destroy. No one was ever wicked in speech or action who was not first wicked in heart. The deeds of atrocity which shock us in execution were first performed in heart—in thought. Had this been "kept," had the early idea been ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous

... declares that the wisdom from above is "first pure." Had he encountered those who take the precious name of Jesus upon lips defiled by tobacco, those whose breath and person are contaminated by its foul odor, and who pollute the air of heaven, and force all about them to inhale the poison,—had the apostle come in contact with a practice so opposed to the purity of the gospel, would he not have denounced it as "earthly, sensual, devilish"? Slaves of ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... quickly rekindled when the South approved the murderous methods intended to make it a slave State. A journal published in the pro-slavery interest threatened "to lynch and hang, tar and feather, and drown every white-livered Abolitionist who dares to pollute our soil," and secret societies, organised for the purpose of keeping out Northern immigrants, resolved "that we recognise the institution of slavery as already existing in this territory, and advise slave-holders to introduce ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... woman, and are the image of your father, what more can I say to you than has already been said?... My dear daughter, whom I tenderly love, see that you live in the world in peace, tranquillity, and contentment—see that you disgrace not yourself, that you stain not your honor, nor pollute the luster and fame of your ancestors.... May God prosper you, my first-born, and may you come to God, who is ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson

... pitied her. Sometimes I turned from my dreary home—where no eye brightened at mine, where myself and my interests were nothing—and I thought of this woman, to whom I was all the world. My daughter Olive, if ever you be a wife, and would keep your husband's love, never let these thoughts enter and pollute his mind. Give him your whole heart, and he will ask no other. Make his home sweet and pleasant to him, and he will not stray from it. Bind him round with cords of love—fast—fast. Oh, that my wife had had ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... 'O handsome one, strive duly this very day to gratify our wishes. Fortunate one, summon thou the god of justice. He is the most virtuous of the celestials. The god of justice and virtue will never be able to pollute us with sin. The world also, O beautiful princess, will then think that what we do can never be unholy. The son also that we shall obtain from him shall in virtue be certainly the foremost among the Kurus. Begotten by the god of justice and morality, he would ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... willingly, not to obey the command of Venus, but even to seek a rest from her labour in the depths of the river. But from the river, the green reed, lowly mother of music, spake to her: "O Psyche! pollute not these waters by self-destruction, nor approach that terrible flock; for, as the heat groweth, they wax fierce. Lie down under yon plane-tree, till the [85] quiet of the river's breath have soothed them. Thereafter thou ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater

... quail before the reproach of his women. Then did he bite his nails in indecision and remorse and swear to be revenged upon the woman who had dared so to pollute his son. Then did Isaac weep continuously, noisily, but ineffectually for, on the morrow, ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly

... did not see any more even a shadow round about him. Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it? He did not believe that. What miserable scruples to torment, blind, and pollute the soul! Pascal has written that there are thousands who sin without regret, who sin with gladness, who feel no warning and no interior desire not to sin. They doubted, hated, loved, acted, felt, and thought just as they pleased. Perhaps they were ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes

... dislike the "smut" in their wheat, how an otherwise good crop will be lowered in value, because the black grain will, when ground, darken the flour. Is it not so with these men of unclean lips? The filthy allusions and improper stories which pollute their conversation make their life infectious, and their companionship dangerous. Let us reprove them, or at least avoid them, as we ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness

... word," replied Douglas, sternly smiling, "of his being flung into a dungeon—famished—strangled. Away with the wretches, Balveny, they pollute ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... things. And when he heard Laielohelohe's reason for setting sail to seek her husband, then he said to the palace guard, "If Kaonohiokala returns again, and asks for Laielohelohe, tell him she is ill, then he will not come back, for she would pollute Kaonohiokala and our parents; when the uncleanness is over, then the deeds of Venus may ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous

... of the outrageous language and conduct of her maid. My Lord not only declares his entire approval of the woman's conduct, but expresses his own abominable doubts of his wife's fidelity in language of such horrible brutality that no lady could pollute her lips by repeating it. "If I had been a man," the Countess says, "and if I had had a weapon in my hand, I would have struck him dead ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins

... of the Demeter from whose bosom we came, and to whose bosom we return, surrounds and inspires, everywhere, the local awe of field and fountain; the sacredness of landmark that none may remove, and of wave that none may pollute; while records of proud days, and of dear persons, make every rock monumental with ghostly inscription, and every path lovely ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... Carolina." Sprague, he finds, "in amicable companionship and popular repute with thieves and adulterers; with slaveholders, slavedealers, and slave-destroyers; ... with the disturbers of the public peace; with the robbers of the public mail; with ruffians who insult, pollute, and lacerate helpless women; and with conspirators against the lives and liberties of New ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke

... choicest gift of Heaven, and wanting which Life is as nothing; hast thou then forgot Thy native home? Must the feet of slaves Pollute this glorious scene? It cannot be. Even as the smile of Heaven can pierce the depths Of these dark caves, and bid the wild flowers bloom In spots where man has never dared to tread; So thy sweet influence still is seen ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... which any man cast overboard from the ship of his Good Name and Good Intent, the more ample stowage-room he had for dollars. Make commerce one huge lie and mighty theft. Deface the banner of the nation for an idle rag; pollute it star by star; and cut out stripe by stripe as from the arm of a degraded soldier. Do anything for dollars! What is ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... family the best and the most advanced form, although it is still requisite for it to be freed from the rigid conventionalism of the indissoluble tie and the disguised and legalised prostitution (the fruits of economic causes) which pollute it ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri

... CUT FLOWERS.—An important rule in preserving cut flowers is never to cram the vase with flowers. Many will last if only they have a large mass of water in the vase and not too many stalks to feed on the water and pollute it. Vases that can hold a large quantity of water are to be preferred to the spindle-shaped trumpets that are often used. Flat dishes covered with wet sand are also useful for short-stalked or heavy-headed ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various

... state of disgrace and agony, two bishops, Isaiah of Rhodes and Alexander of Diospolis, were dragged through the streets of Constantinople, while their brethren were admonished, by the voice of a crier, to observe this awful lesson, and not to pollute the sanctity of their character. Perhaps these prelates were innocent. A sentence of death and infamy was often founded on the slight and suspicious evidence of a child or a servant: the guilt of the green faction, of the rich, and ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon



Words linked to "Pollute" :   bemire, dirty, colly, taint, polluter, infect, foul, pollutant, pollution, contaminate, begrime, grime, soil



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