ambient

From Latin ambiēns (“going around”), from ambiō (“go around”).

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈæm.bi.ənt/

• Audio (UK):

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ambient (comparative more ambient, superlative most ambient)

1. Encompassing on all sides; surrounding; encircling; enveloping.

   A cup of warm tea eventually cools to the ambient temperature.

   • 1667, John Milton, “(please specify the page number)”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

     This which yields or fills all space / The ambient air wide interfused

   • 1715, [Alexander] Pope, The Temple of Fame: A Vision, London: […] Bernard Lintott […], →OCLC, page 9:

     Then gazing up, a glorious Pile beheld, / VVhoſe tovv'ring Summit ambient Clouds conceal'd.

2. (music) Evoking or creating an atmosphere: atmospheric.
3. Relating to, or suitable for, storage at room temperature.

   ambient food

   ambient warehousing

4. (mathematics) Containing objects or describing a setting that one is interested in.
   • 1996, Moshe Machover, Set Theory, Logic and Their Limitations, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 282:

     These, then, are characterizations of the system of natural numbers within an ambient set theory. And they seem to work, in the sense that in a sufficiently strong set theory it can be shown that Peano's axioms have (up to isomorphism) a unique model (cf. Rem. 6.1.8).

   • 2008, Akihiro Kanamori, The Higher Infinite: Large Cardinals in Set Theory from Their Beginnings, Springer Science & Business Media, →ISBN, page 369:

     As much of the work in determinacy must proceed without AC, ZF serves as the ambient theory for this section, and uses of AC will be explicitly noted, reversing the usual procedure.

   • 2011, Henry W. Haslach Jr., Maximum Dissipation Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics and its Geometric Structure, Springer Science & Business Media, →ISBN, page 163:

     A point in the manifold is classically represented by a vector in the ambient space.

ambient (countable and uncountable, plural ambients)

1. Something that surrounds; encompassing material, substance or shape.
   • 1665, Robert Hooke, Micrographia:

     Much after this same manner, when the Air is exceeding cold through which it passes; do we find the drops of Rain, falling from the Clouds, congealed into round Hail-stones by the freezing Ambient.

2. (astrology) The atmosphere; the surrounding air or sky; atmospheric components collectively such as air, clouds, water vapour, hail, etc.
   • 1662 Thomas Salusbury, Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (Dialogue 2):

     It might be also, that attracted by that great void Vacuum ... all the ambients would be rarified, and particularly, the air.

3. (uncountable, music) A type of modern music that creates a relaxing and peaceful atmosphere.
   • 1996, SPIN, volume 12, number 3, page 116:

     Ambient can be flabby synth mulch that needs to access cyberism and external philosophies to convince you you're not being scammed.

• (music): ambient music, chillout

• → Polish: ambient

• John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “ambient”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN.

• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “ambient”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “ambient”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Borrowed from Latin ambientem.

• IPA^(key): (Central) [əm.biˈen]
• IPA^(key): (Balearic) [əm.biˈent]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [am.biˈent]

ambient m or f (masculine and feminine plural ambients)

1. ambient

• ambiental
• ambientar
• medi ambient

ambient m (plural ambients)

1. ambience, atmosphere
2. environment

• “ambient”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007
• “ambient”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2025
• “ambient” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “ambient” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

• Audio:

  (file)

ambient (strong nominative masculine singular ambienter, not comparable)

1. (very rare, widely unintelligible)

ambient m (plural ambienc)

1. environment

ambient

1. third-person plural future active indicative of ambiō

Borrowed from English ambient.^[1] First attested in 1996.^[2]

• IPA^(key): /ˈam.bjɛnt/
• Rhymes: -ambjɛnt
• Syllabification: am‧bient

ambient m inan

1. (music) ambient (type of modern music that creates a relaxing and peaceful atmosphere)

ambient (not comparable, indeclinable, no derived adverb)

1. (relational, music) ambient (of or pertaining to the genre)

   Synonym: ambientowy

• ambient in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• ambient in Polish dictionaries at PWN
• ambient in Narodowy Fotokorpus Języka Polskiego

ambient m (uncountable)

1. (music) ambient (genre of electronic music with a slow, atmospheric tone)

Borrowed from French ambient.

ambient n (plural ambienturi)

1. ambiance, atmosphere, environment