DictionaryAI

environment

noun
in-VY-urn-muhnt/ɪnˈvaɪɚ(n)mənt/in-VY-ruh-muhnt/ɪnˈvaɪɹəmənt/

Pluralenvironments

6 meanings of environment

Practice

  1. 1
    settingnouncountable
    The conditions and surroundings in which someone or something exists or operates, including social and political ones, and the influence they have.

    The company tried to create a relaxed work environment.

    Animals adapt to the environment in which they live.

    UsageOften with a word in front: a work environment, a learning environment, a safe environment for children.

    Note

    Every other sense narrows it to one kind of surroundings. It pairs easily with a modifier, as in work environment or learning environment, and it shrinks readily: Jonathan Rauch's 1998 essay "Tunnel Vision" splits a large environment into ten million microenvironments, each to be regulated in its own right.

  2. 2
    nature as a wholenounusually singular
    The natural world, including its living things and the systems that support them.

    Conservation groups work to defend the environment from industrial damage.

    Plastic waste in the oceans poses a serious threat to the marine environment.

    UsageAlmost always with the: protect the environment, harm the environment, the marine environment.

    Similarnature

  3. 3
    computer setupnouncountable
    The software and hardware present on a particular computer system.

    The new feature crashed in the production environment but ran fine on local machines.

    Each developer sets up an identical environment to avoid version conflicts.

    Note

    A computing word for the whole platform a program runs on: the machine, its operating system and the other software installed on it. People speak of the Windows environment, or of development, test and production environments as separate setups. Keep it apart from the process's variable set, which is a list of names and values handed to one running program, not the platform itself.

  4. 4
    outside a systemnouncountable
    All the elements that act on a system, or on the inputs it takes in and the outputs it produces.

    Designers mapped every part of the environment that could disturb the control system.

    The model treats temperature and humidity as part of the system's environment.

Less common meanings

  1. 5
    noun
    The set of variables and their values that an operating system links to a running process.
  2. 6
    noun
    The set of identifiers in a function's scope and their bindings at a given point during a program's execution.

Practice

Can you tell the meanings of environment apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.

Origin

This word comes from Middle French "environnement" (compare modern French "environnement"); by surface analysis it can be broken down into "environ" plus the suffix "-ment."

Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 3 facts