environmentaladj.
/ᵻnˌvʌɪrə(n)ˈmɛntl/, /ᵻnˌvʌɪrn̩ˈmɛntl/, /ɛnˌvʌɪrə(n)ˈmɛntl/, /ɛnˌvʌɪrn̩ˈmɛntl/, U.S. /ənˌvaɪrə(n)ˈmɛn(t)l/, /ənˌvaɪ(ə)rnˈmɛn(t)l/, /ɛnˌvaɪrə(n)ˈmɛn(t)l/, /ɛnˌvaɪ(ə)rnˈmɛn(t)l/ 1. Of or relating to the surroundings, physical context, or (particular) environment of a person, animal, or thing (cf. environment n. 2a, 2b). Also figurative.
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the world > space > relative position > condition of being external > surrounding > [adjective] > of or relating to one's or the environment
environmental1873
environal1888
1873 Academy 15 Feb. 69/2 It is quite certain that some plants transferred to a new area will evidence symptoms of constitutional in response to environmental changes.
1887 Athenæum 7 May 611/3 The external or environmental explanation of evolution.
1902 W. James Varieties Relig. Experience xiv. 360 Utopian dreams of social justice..are, in spite of their impracticability and non-adaptation to present environmental conditions, analogous to the saint's belief in an existent kingdom of heaven.
1928 R. N. Chapman in Ecology 9 114 The quantity of organisms which may be found is a result of the balance between the biotic potential or the potential rate of reproduction, and the environmental resistance.
1947 A. D. Imms Outl. Entomol. (ed. 3) iii. 97 A diapause, or arrestation of growth, may take place at any stage of development. It is a condition of suspended metabolism that may be induced by various environmental causes such as cold, dryness, heat, &c.
1962 Listener 24 May 903/1 There must be a proper relationship between the traffic capacity of the main distributory system and the capacity of the intervening areas (which for convenience I call the ‘environmental areas’).
2008 M. Lück Encycl. Tourism & Recreat. in Marine Environments 292/2 Environmental features such as submerged rocks, reefs and sandbars pose a threat to all marine vessels.
2. Of or relating to the natural environment (cf. environment n. 2d).
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1935 Canad. Jrnl. Econ. & Polit. Sci. 1 535 I have also suggested that geography links the four ‘environmental’ sciences of botany, physics, geology, and astronomy with the four ‘human’ sciences.
1958 Ecology 39 522 The advent of a full-scale atomic power industry presents an undefined problem of environmental pollution by radioactive wastes.
1984 Times 22 Sept. 9/7 The emotive name ‘acid rain’ and the observable environmental effects have drawn attention away from the greenhouse effect.
1991 Bull. Atomic Scientists Oct. 38/1 Off-site health impacts are a plausible, but unproven, consequence of environmental contamination from the nuclear weapons complex.
2009 Guardian 25 Sept. 16/1 This ‘ecological debt day’ marks the point in the year when consumption around the world exceeds the Earth's annual ‘biocapacity’—so for the remainder of the year, we will be eating into environmental resources that will not be replaced.
3.
a. Concerned with or relating to the protection of the environment, esp. against the harmful effects of human activity.
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1966 Los Angeles Times 25 Apr. ii. 3/1 Citizen participation will be sought from many sources—construction and finance, environmental groups, hospital and inter-religious organizations and a cross section of civic groups.
1990 Newsweek 16 Apr. 71/2 ‘Silent Spring’ was the seminal text of the modern environmental movement.
1999 CEEmail Autumn 5/1 As an organisation, the Trust itself is engaged in the sustainable management of its properties in line with a set of environmental principles that underpin our work.
2005 M. K. Jaccard Sustainable Fossil Fuels viii. 282 These programs can even be supported by those environmental lobbyists who want to believe that a more sustainable energy system..can be achieved without trade-offs.
b. Causing minimal harm to the natural environment. Also: designed to work sympathetically with the environment. Cf. environmentally friendly adj. at environmentally adv. Compounds.
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the world > action or operation > safety > [adjective] > safe or not dangerous > safe or harmless > to the environment
environmentalist1968
environmentally sound1969
environmentally friendly1971
friendly1971
low-impact1972
sustainable1976
environmental1977
environmental friendly1977
sustainability1980
eco-sensitive1982
environment-friendly1982
nature-friendly1984
ozone-friendly1988
earth-friendly1989
eco-friendly1989
1977 Muscatine (Iowa) Jrnl. 24 May (advt.) 22/2 New Environmental Formula, Reg. Right Guard.
1985 N. Bagnall Def. of Clichés ix. 162 Developers and even local planning authorities..fool either themselves or others with the idea that if something is environmental it must be good, whereas its proper use is quite neutral.
1990 Los Angeles Times 18 June (Orange County ed.) b11/3 Irvine has become known as America's ‘environmental’ city, an urban community where one-third of the land is planned as open space.
2007 Bristol Evening Post (Nexis) 17 Feb. 40 Many environmental detergents are still more expensive than ordinary.
Compounds
environmental activism n. activism with the aim of protecting the natural environment, esp. from the harmful effects of human activity; cf. eco-activism n. at eco- comb. form 2b(b).
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1969 N.Y. Times 30 Dec. 19/5 Hundreds of students are organizing for environmental ‘activism’.
1987 P. Brimblecombe Big Smoke v. 90 The late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries show plenty of evidence of interest in the causes and effects of air pollution, but it was hardly an age of environmental activism.
2008 Independent 5 Mar. 24/1 An attack by eco-terrorists on one of Seattle's most exclusive enclaves has exposed the dark side of environmental activism.
environmental activist n. a person who engages in environmental activism; cf. eco-activist n. at eco- comb. form 2b(b).
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society > authority > lack of subjection > rebelliousness > militancy > [noun] > ecologically motivated > participant or activist
environmental activist1969
environmental campaigner1970
ecoteur1972
eco-raider1973
monkeywrencher1978
eco-terrorist1986
1969 Science 7 Nov. 724/1 A coalition of environmental activists in effect told the government:..you simply must ban DDT.
2007 K. Danaher et al. Building Green Econ. 31 When she learned that her neighborhood had been built on top of 20,000 tons of toxic chemicals, she became an environmental activist overnight.
environmental art n. (originally) art characterized by the creation of a three-dimensional space intended to be experienced from within (cf. environment n. 6); (now also) art which manipulates or comments upon the natural environment (cf. earth art n. at earth n.1 Compounds 8b).
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1962 Art Jrnl. 21 160/1 In many respects the contemporary notions of environmental art and psychic distance..stand for a new naturalism—the introduction of the art audience to the patch-work meaninglessness of life.
1968 N.Y. Times 19 May d35/3 Using excavators, earth movers and spreaders, he'll convert it into a ‘massive geometric earth and sod mound’, giving wild new dimension to the term ‘environmental art’.
1999 S. L. Kasfir Contemp. Afr. Art vi. 189 Although produced for an environmental art workshop which preceded the Earth Summit in Brazil,..it was not about soil erosion, but something more basic—the erosion of cultures.
2005 New Yorker 7 Nov. 96/1 They are akin in this sense to environmental art, where, as he puts it, you're surrounded by different elements of a work and it doesn't really matter whether you're focussing on one of them or none of them at any particular moment.
environmental audit n. an assessment of the activity of a business or other organization with respect to its compliance with practices seeking to minimize harm to the environment; (also) a similar evaluation applied to a particular project; cf. green audit n. at green adj. and n.1 Compounds 1d(e).
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the mind > attention and judgement > enquiry > investigation, inspection > inspection, survey > [noun] > of environment
environmental audit1970
green audit1989
1970 Daily News-Miner (Fairbanks, Alaska) 8 Apr. 7/8 Hammond said the commission would provide the state with an ‘environmental audit’.
1990 Managing Environment (Business International Ltd.) vii. 96 The essential purpose of an environmental audit..is the systematic scrutiny of environmental performance throughout a company's existing operations.
2000 Building Design 18 Feb. 6/3 The House Builders Federation has announced that many of its members are imposing self-regulatory environmental audits on their projects.
environmental campaigner n. = environmental activist n.
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society > authority > lack of subjection > rebelliousness > militancy > [noun] > ecologically motivated > participant or activist
environmental activist1969
environmental campaigner1970
ecoteur1972
eco-raider1973
monkeywrencher1978
eco-terrorist1986
1970 Chicago Tribune 17 May 14/1 Some environmental campaigners do not agree with her choice, saying it contains too much phosphorus.
2008 D. Runciman Polit. Hypocrisy 224 An environmental campaigner who travels the world by jet to spread the message that air travel is a significant cause of global warming is compromised.
environmental determinism n. the theory that environment (frequently as opposed to heredity) is the primary influence on development, esp. that of a person or group; = environmentalism n. 1.
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the world > people > science of mankind > [noun] > anthropology > theories in
anthroponomy1811
environmental determinism1892
biologism1912
environmentalism1917
diffusionism1918
monoanthropism1950
1892 Chambers's Encycl. (new ed.) X. 428/1 This may be due to the inheritance of characters individually acquired under the stress of surrounding conditions (direct environmental determinism).
1954 Amer. Anthropologist 56 801 Early students, impressed with the ways in which cultures were adjusted to the unique features of their local environments, developed the concept of environmental determinism.
2002 S. Pinker Blank Slate x. 178 The most risible pretexts for bad behavior in recent decades have come not from biological determinism but from environmental determinism.
environmental engineer n. an expert or specialist in environmental engineering.
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society > occupation and work > worker > workers according to type of work > manual or industrial worker > engineer > [noun] > other types
millwright1387
field engineer1758
chemical engineer1838
mechanical engineer1840
industrial engineer1849
structural engineer1867
civil1873
sanitary engineer1873
radio engineer1910
stress analyst1916
ack emma1917
stressman1919
roboticist1940
systems engineer1940
environmental engineer1947
terotechnologist1970
knowledge engineer1981
1947 Ironwood (Mich.) Daily Globe 27 Nov. 2/2 LaRue Miller, environmental engineer of the Michigan department of health.
1972 Accountant 21 Sept. 361/1 Young, Austen and Young describe themselves as ‘Environmental Engineers’, which seems to be an increasingly popular form of description for what used to be called heating and ventilating engineers.
2009 R. M. Maier et al. Environmental Microbiol. (ed. 2) 120 A recently trained environmental engineer is hired to investigate solutions to clogging of water distribution lines by a persistent, thick, and gelatinous material.
environmental engineering n. the branch of engineering that deals with the application of technology to the management of a specific indoor or outdoor environment or the natural environment as a whole, esp. in the reduction of pollution, management of waste disposal, and mitigation of the impact of human industrial activity.
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society > occupation and work > industry > engineering > [noun] > branches of
waterwork?a1560
civil engineeringc1770
water engineering1787
millwrighting1821
engineering science1826
hydraulic engineering1835
river engineering1842
structural engineering1859
industrial engineering1860
chemical engineering1861
sanitary engineering1868
biological engineering1898
control engineering1914
radio engineering1915
environmental engineering1946
systems engineering1946
bioengineering1950
value engineering1959
biomedical engineering1961
geoengineering1962
macro-engineering1964
microengineering1964
terotechnology1970
hydroengineering1971
civil1975
mechatronics1976
knowledge engineering1977
1946 Elem. School Jrnl. 46 557/1 Conservation..is not an easy term to define, but perhaps it might be called ‘environmental engineering’—an area in which man, aided by his servant, science, strives to provide on a permanent basis the best possible living conditions for the people.
1969 Times 8 Aug. 1/4 Refrigeration is really a branch of environmental engineering, which is itself a branch of building.
2010 G. M. Horn Environmental Engineer 4 Do you like solving problems and meeting challenges? Then environmental engineering may be the right career for you.
environmental friendliness n. the quality of being environmentally friendly.
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1984 Proc. 29th IUPAC Congr. 1983 359 The adaptation of production processes and products to the requirements of greater environmental ‘friendliness’.
1993 Guardian 16 Oct. (Weekend Suppl.) 57/2 In the fight for survival in today's green tourism business the environmental friendliness of even a ballpoint pen can be crucial.
2008 T. J. Velte et al. Green IT xiv. 278 A company can only be as dedicated to environmental friendliness as its leaders are.
environmental friendly adj. = environmentally friendly adj. at environmentally adv. Compounds.Environmentally friendly is generally preferred.
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the world > action or operation > safety > [adjective] > safe or not dangerous > safe or harmless > to the environment
environmentalist1968
environmentally sound1969
environmentally friendly1971
friendly1971
low-impact1972
sustainable1976
environmental1977
environmental friendly1977
sustainability1980
eco-sensitive1982
environment-friendly1982
nature-friendly1984
ozone-friendly1988
earth-friendly1989
eco-friendly1989
1977 Greeley (Colorado) Tribune 18 May 13/1 The keynote address..is titled ‘Challenge to Change—Environmental Friendly Energy Sources’.
1993 Guardian 4 Aug. 19/8 Ships offer a safe, congestion-free and environmental friendly way of moving large amounts of freight.
2007 P. K. Conkin State of Earth viii. 211 The Clinton Administration, at least in its public statements, was more environmental friendly than the two prior Republican administrations.
environmental health n. the branch of public health concerned with studying and regulating factors in the environment which affect human health and disease and with alleviating detrimental effects; often attributive; (also) the general condition of the natural environment.
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1935 Sci. Monthly Oct. (advt.) Aspects of public health discussed in this book are environmental health hazards, community attack on specific diseases, and health problems specific to certain groups.]
1942 Science 10 July 38/1 The north wing of the first floor will be assigned to industrial health, with a large laboratory for studies in environmental health.
1964 Jrnl. Health & Human Behavior 5 131/2 Sanitary engineering now stresses the inter-relatedness..of biosystems themselves with social systems: designation of the field as ‘environmental health’ symbolizes this broadened viewpoint.
1989 C. Caufield Multiple Exposures (1990) ix. 79 [His] office backs directly on to Shiprock's biggest environmental health problem, the 72-acre tailings pile.
1990 Bellcore Insight Winter 3/1 In assessing the environmental health of the planet, these reports have observed the same alarming trends.
1999 D. Haslam Manchester, Eng. 265 Venues and clubs which had initially helped make the city centre attractive to young homeowners were threatened with closure by environmental health inspectors after a surge in complaints about noise from new city dwellers.
2007 Independent 30 May 2/5 The Arctic is the barometer of the globe's environmental health.
environmental health officer n. an official responsible for administering and enforcing measures to protect public health as affected by the environment.
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1964 Jrnl. Health & Human Behavior 5 132/2 One area of professional concern to the environmental health officer is housing and the total residential environment.
1989 Which? July 307/2 Tests carried out by environmental health officers around the country have found many shops keep chiller cabinets too warm.
2011 C. Bratiotis et al. Hoarding Handbk. vi. 74 A Public Health Officer in one [US] state may be called an Environmental Health Officer in another.
environmental hormone n. a substance in the external environment that mimics the action of a hormone or otherwise alters the endocrine or physiological function of an organism or species.
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1952 Trans. 14th Conf. Probl. of Aging 1951 47 The aging process changes if appropriate environmental hormones are administered.
1962 Biol. Bull. 122 343 GSH [sc. reduced glutathione] has been termed an ‘environmental hormone’.
2005 L. Page Diets for Healthy Living 178 Chemical pollutants containing environmental hormones reach your food supply wherever you live.
environmental illness n. any illness caused or exacerbated by (or attributed to) environmental factors; spec. such an illness attributed to exposure to chemicals (also called multiple chemical sensitivity).
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1965 Brandon (Manitoba) Sun 7 July 3/3 As health inspector, his main task is inspection of food-vending establishments, restaurants, swimming pools and water supplies to aid in the prevention of environmental illnesses.
1983 Science 23 Sept. 1244/2 Certain chemicals appear somehow to overload otherwise healthy human immune or detoxification systems, or both. The resulting ‘environmental illness’ is marked by varied, extreme allergic symptoms in some numbers of people.
1987 Neurology 37 iii. 467 This demonstration that Parkinson's disease may be place-related provides support for the hypothesis that Parkinson's disease, like MS [sc. multiple sclerosis], is an acquired, environmental illness.
1993 Brit. Med. Jrnl. 30 Jan. 330 Formal studies confirm that most patients who have been labelled as having ‘twentieth century disease’ or ‘environmental illness’ fulfil criteria for psychiatric disorders.
2003 National Post (Canada) 29 Mar. sr5/5 Also called environmental illness, Gulf War syndrome or sick building syndrome, multiple chemical sensitivity is an acquired chronic disorder triggered by prolonged exposure to chemicals.
environmental impact n. (a) the effect of a change in the physical environment on an organism (now rare); (b) the effect of a man-made activity, change, or development on the natural environment; frequently attributive, as environmental impact assessment, environmental impact statement, etc.
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1911 H. M. Bernard & M. Bernard Neglected Factors in Evol. iii. 37 The paths along which its [sc. an organism's] energies flow outward and the stimuli from environmental impacts inward.
1957 Public Health Rep. (U.S. Public Health Service) 72 1108/1 It is therefore important that various operations be classified according to their environmental impact.
1977 Audubon Sept. 57/2 The AEC was obliged to file an environmental impact statement (EIS) for the Palisades plant.
1990 Lifestyle Summer 27/2 There has been growing concern about the environmental impact of using disposable nappies.
2006 J. Shankleman Oil, Profits, & Peace iv. 62 Environmental impact assessments began to be expanded to include an assessment of social impacts.
environmental label n. a label used to provide consumers with information on the environmental impact of a product's manufacture, use, disposal, etc.; spec. = eco-label n. at eco- comb. form 4.
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society > communication > indication > that which identifies or distinguishes > labelling > [noun] > label, tag, or ticket > on goods
waybill1887
Teltag1965
Hazchem1973
environmental label1988
eco-label1989
1988 Financial Post (Canada) 28 June 5/1 (headline) Feds plan environmental labels.
1995 Business Ethics Q. 5 784 Conversely, environmental labels are often used to warn of environmentally harmful products.
2005 M. Wier et al. in Environment, Information & Consumer Behaviour 165 Organic buyers..recognize and notice the Nordic Swan label (an environmental label) more often than non-buyers.
environmental labelling n. the action or practice of using environmental labels.
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1989 Globe & Mail (Toronto) 17 Feb. b5/5 Manufacturers have expressed fears about the economic impact of environmental labelling.
1998 Jrnl. Business Ethics 17 281/2 One study of environmental labelling on White Goods found that this information had a limited impact on..purchasing behavior.
2001 J. Burchell & S. Lightfoot Greening of European Union? 44 Without environmental standards and environmental labelling, both business and consumers cannot possess the information they need to make judgments about the environmental quality of the goods.
environmental management n. (a) chiefly Psychology manipulation of the physical or social environment of a person or group; (b) management of human impact on the environment, esp. with the intention of preserving natural resources.
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1949 W. C. Olson Child Devel. xi. 321 The teacher exercises delegated social responsibilities for control through language and environmental management.
1962 H. J. Barnett & C. Morse Scarcity & Growth 40 The public interest in river basin and watershed development cannot be fully satisfied by local agencies... Society has had an ‘environmental management’ function thrust upon it.
2001 S. A. Brown et al. in M. C. Roberts & C. E. Walker Handbk. Clin. Child Psychol. xxxviii. 771 Inpatient and outpatient programs typically include..a rehabilitation phase focusing on coping skills training, environmental management, and alterations in social networks.
2005 J. Diamond Collapse (2006) xi. 342 Trujillo shifted the impetus for environmental management to a top-down approach. His regime..set up a corps of forest guards to enforce protection of forests.
environmental medicine n. a branch of medicine or a multidisciplinary science concerned with the relationships between human health and the physical, biological, and social environment.
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1920 Johns Hopkins Alumni Mag. June 362 [A lecture on] Environmental Medicine, by Dr. C. P. Emerson.
1967 Lancet Apr. 944/2 I distinguish community medicine from ‘inpatient’ medicine..and from environmental medicine, in which I include all resources devoted to reducing the hazards of the milieu.
2007 B. J. Sadock et al. Kaplan & Sadock's Synopsis of Psychiatry 844/2 Environmental medicine now concerns itself with issues such as food additives; electromagnetic fields..; fertilisers and hormones used in food production..and nuclear radiation.
environmental psychologist n. a student of or specialist in environmental psychology.
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1967 Rev. Highway Beautification: Hearings before Subcomm. on Roads (U.S. House Comm. Public Works, 90th Congr., 1st Sess. 396 A unique team of specialists..included..a professional architect; a professor of a large college of agriculture and urban planning; and an environmental psychologist.
1990 S. Abercrombie Philos. of Interior Design 16 Some environmental psychologists rate interiors according to their so-called information rate—that is, according to the amount of stimuli that the inhabitant is given to consider.
2014 Daily Tel. (Nexis) 18 Dec. 1 An environmental psychologist at the University of Surrey said there was strong evidence to suggest that households with real [Christmas] trees enjoyed health benefits from ‘exposure to natural environments’.
environmental psychology n. the psychology of people or animals in relation to their physical, natural, or social environments.
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1945 A. Koestler Yogi & Commissar iii. ii. 171 The socialist attitude to criminology, based on environmental psychology.
1970 H. Proshansky et al. Environmental Psychol. 5 Ultimately all environmental sciences are concerned to a greater or lesser extent with questions of human behavior. They must then turn to environmental psychology.
1990 New Age Jrnl. Jan. 74/1 Zoos commissioned pioneers from unlikely disciplines—ethnography, environmental psychology, behavioral biology, landscape architecture, bioacoustics, computer graphics, restoration ecology.
2014 Irish Daily Mail (Nexis) 10 May 36 Research in environmental psychology shows that the natural environment promotes recovery from stress and helps to restore the ability to focus attention.
environmental racism n. originally and chiefly U.S. racial discrimination in the development and implementation of environmental policy, esp. as manifested in the concentration of hazardous waste disposal sites in or near areas with a relatively large ethnic minority population.
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1987 Washington Post 16 Apr. a7/1 Commercial facilities for the disposal of toxic industrial wastes have been concentrated in areas with relatively large minority populations, demonstrating a pattern of ‘environmental racism’.
1998 San Francisco Chron. (Electronic ed.) 28 Feb. a19 Increasingly, native communities are being targeted as hazardous waste dumps... It's environmental racism.
2007 J. F. Morse Level Playing Field i. 28 Environmental racism creates the unhealthful conditions for many of our children who live in poverty.
environmental refugee n. a person who leaves his or her home because of changes in the environment, such as land degradation, drought, or rising sea levels, and settles or seeks to settle elsewhere.
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1983 L. Timberlake Environmental Wars & Environmental Refugees 11 In Haiti this cycle has not yet caused an ‘environmental war’, but it has resulted in a massive stream of environmental refugees.
1991 J. Rifkin Biosphere Politics i. i. 13 Political tensions continue to mount as millions of environmental refugees find themselves homeless and increasingly desperate.
2009 Boston Globe 9 Feb. a10 Climate change is expected to create about 200 million environmental refugees by 2050.
environmental services n. services contributing to public sanitation, such as water supply and waste management.
ΘΚΠ
the world > physical sensation > cleanness and dirtiness > sanitation > provision of sewers > [noun]
sewering1865
environmental services1926
1926 Times 29 Dec. 12/3 The Minister has given more precision to what he meant by supervision by the county council over what he has called environmental services.
1969 Life 28 Mar. 70/1 The Tufts project..provides medical treatment, medicine, food and social and environmental services for northern Bolivar's poor.
2002 M. Lovei & B. S. Gentry Environmental Implications of Privatization 5/2 Two key issues should be considered at the outset of any effort to privatize environmental services such as water supply and waste management.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2011; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adj.1873- to make up lost ground
- to make up number
- to make up numbers
- to make up one's mind
- to make up one's mouth
- to make up one's resolution
- to make up the mouth
- to make up the number
- to make up the numbers
- to make up to
- to make upon
- to make upwards
- to make urine
- to make use of
- to make vaunt
- to make vent of
- to make vintage
- to make violence etc
- to make violence on
- to make violence to
- to make war
- to make warning
- to make warrantise
- to make wash-way of, with
- to make wash-work with