How to Use pollute in a Sentence

pollute

verb
  • Car exhaust pollutes the air.
  • Miles of beaches were polluted by the oil spill.
  • The billowing haze and ash will cloud and pollute the state for weeks if not months.
    — Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 15 Sep. 2020
  • The world needs a plan to adapt The risks of aged, polluting cars sent abroad will not be borne by the Global South alone.
    — David Zipper, Vox, 3 Sep. 2024
  • The emissions rain down as an oily residue, polluting homes and farms.
    — Adriana Loureiro Fernandez, New York Times, 3 Sep. 2023
  • Some fans think that mark is like a virus, polluting Bran from the inside out.
    — Mehera Bonner, Marie Claire, 26 Apr. 2019
  • Car engines have advanced over the years to pollute less.
    — CBS News, 10 Dec. 2021
  • Plastic bits pollute the world’s oceans, beaches, and rivers.
    — Aaron Gilbreath, Longreads, 10 Aug. 2017
  • Despite that progress, the air is still unhealthy and polluted in many parts of the country.
    — Alejandra Borunda, NPR, 23 Apr. 2025
  • The heat produced from the Earth’s core not only doesn’t pollute, but is also cheap.
    — Bloomberg.com, 25 Mar. 2018
  • Taking all the bad things away that pollute the river helped me have the courage to clean up all the pollution that was in my life, too.
    — Shelina Lal, The Seattle Times, 8 June 2018
  • Just how much of this polluting powder is stored in these pits?
    — Sarah Bowman, Indianapolis Star, 24 Sep. 2017
  • This could mean airlines will get a free pass to pollute until 2024.
    — Kate Aronoff, The New Republic, 4 June 2021
  • That means plastic straws get tossed in the garbage, ending up in landfills and polluting the ocean.
    — Christina Caron, New York Times, 9 July 2018
  • But this is the first time Samara is being polluted with it on her walk home.
    — Lizz Schumer, Peoplemag, 18 Sep. 2024
  • Deep-fryer oil should not be poured on the ground or down a storm drain, which could pollute waterways and clog the storm pipe.
    — Emma Austin, The Courier-Journal, 26 Nov. 2020
  • There is a new push for electric school buses, which would pollute less.
    — JSTOR Daily, 24 June 2024
  • The currents in the Adriatic Sea flow from south to north—and so flows the waste and pollutes the northern Adriatic coast.
    — Kaila Contreras, Houston Chronicle, 3 Apr. 2018
  • These plants feed on nutrients that pollute and cloud the waters.
    — Tim Prudente, baltimoresun.com, 11 July 2018
  • The crew complied—but Matveev told the officials that his ship had an oil leak and might pollute their waters.
    — Tristram Korten, Smithsonian Magazine, 21 Aug. 2020
  • What is the potential for neighbors to pollute the water?
    — Ron Lieber, New York Times, 19 Mar. 2025
  • Nicholas warned this disparity would see those that pollute the least suffer the most.
    — NBC News, 9 Aug. 2021
  • Still, perhaps the best way to tackle the issue isn’t policing the sale but polluting the appeal.
    — Mark Ellwood, Robb Report, 21 Feb. 2024
  • Indigenous groups want to know if that means the river can now sue people who pollute it.
    — Julia Hollingsworth, CNN, 11 Dec. 2020
  • Wildfires are back, and with them is the risk of smoke clouding the metro Detroit sky, polluting the air quality.
    — Jenna Prestininzi, Detroit Free Press, 31 May 2024
  • But because the Great Salt Lake is drying up, toxins threaten to pollute the city’s air.
    — Michael Kolomatsky, New York Times, 9 Feb. 2023
  • The idea was to ensure that the EPA could protect those new bodies from being polluted.
    — Christopher Harress | Charress@al.com, al, 17 Sep. 2019
  • This is our drinking water that is being polluted, and for years no one seemed to care.
    — David North, Chicago Reader, 10 July 2018
  • Over the past few decades, the combination of these three kinds of rules has pushed automakers to build cars that are significantly more fuel efficient and pollute less.
    — Camila Domonoske, NPR, 29 July 2025
  • But whatever the motive behind the decade-long effort to boost Woodard on Wikipedia, the incident reminds us just how much effort some people are willing to put into polluting open or public-facing projects for their own ends.
    — Nate Anderson, ArsTechnica, 14 Aug. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'pollute.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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