The word pollution comes from the Middle English pollucioun, originally from the Latin polluere (meaning to soil, defile or contaminate).

The thing is, in about 1380 the Middle English meaning of pollucioun was a little remarkable..

At that time it meant: desecration/profanity; spiritual or moral impiety and the discharge of semen other than during sexual intercourse....

This last meaning is how Chaucer used it in The Canterbury Tales: (The Parson's Tale):

"Another synne (sin) aperteneth (relates) to leccherie (leachery), that comth in slepynge (sleeping), and this synne cometh ofte to hem than ben (be) maydeness, and eek to hem that ben corrupt, and this synne men clepen (speak/call) polucion, that comth in foure maneres, som tyme it comth of langwissynge (languishing) of body, for the humours (one of the four bodily fluids) been too rank and too habundant in the body of the man......"

What makes this a little more intriguing is it wasn't till about the 1700s we understood sex had anything to do with reproduction. (See: Rotting Meat, Three Jars, Maggots and Sex.) Up until then society believed in the Theory of Spontaneous Generation.

What does it all mean...?