environmental

1. 1
   about natureadjective

   Relating to the environment: the natural surroundings and conditions in which people, animals, and plants live.

   The company faced fines for breaking environmental regulations.

   Climate change is one of the biggest environmental challenges we face.

   UsageGoes before a noun: environmental damage. Before another adjective, use environmentally: environmentally friendly.

   Similarecological

2. 2
   green (products)adjective

   Causing little or no harm to the natural world.

   Buying secondhand clothes is often the most environmental option, since nothing new has to be made.

   Shoppers increasingly prefer environmental alternatives to plastic bags.

   UsageWhere a phrase could be read either way, environmentally friendly or green makes this meaning clear.

   Similargreen, eco-friendly, sustainable

   Note

   Here the adjective takes a side. An environmental product is not merely about the natural world but good for it. Folmer and Gabel's Principles of Environmental and Resource Economics (2000) speaks of "environmental products and other environmental innovations" in this sense. Context usually decides: environmental damage can only carry the neutral "relating to" meaning.

3. 3
   upbringingadjective

   Concerning the outside influences on a person's development, such as upbringing and culture, rather than those passed down through heredity.

   Studies of twins raised apart help researchers separate genetic from environmental influences on intelligence.

   Some psychologists argue that most differences in personality are environmental rather than inherited.

   UsageUsually set against genetic or inherited: genetic and environmental factors, environmental rather than inherited.

   Similaracquired

   Oppositegenetic, hereditary, inherited, innate

   Note

   This is the nurture side of nature versus nurture: environmental here stands opposite genetic, hereditary or inherited, not beside green or ecological. An environmental factor in psychology may be a family's income or a school, not only the natural world.

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