Definition of AMBIENT

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Adjective

Biologists explore the effects of ambient light on plants; acoustics experts try to control ambient sound; and meteorologists study ambient pressure, air, or temperature. All this can make ambient seem like a technical term, but when it first saw light of day, that all-encompassing adjective was as likely to be used in poetry as in science. John Milton used it in Paradise Lost, and Alexander Pope wrote of a mountain "whose tow'ring summit ambient clouds conceal'd." Both poets and scientists who use ambient owe a debt to the Latin verb ambire, meaning "to go around," the grandparent of our English word.

Examples of ambient in a Sentence

Adjective Keep the chemicals at an ambient temperature of 70°F. the bright ambient light of the room People shopped as ambient music played in the background. Noun observing how the survival techniques of primates vary with the ambient

Recent Examples on the Web: Adjective The kit also includes memory settings for the driver's seat and mirrors and ambient interior lighting. — Eric Stafford, Car and Driver, "Our Ford Mustang Bullitt Remains a Lovable Steed Through an Unlovable Season," 16 Mar. 2020 The ocean is full of organisms that live inside hard shells, and those shells are primarily made by using ambient calcium carbonate. — Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, "All Coral Reefs Could Be Dead Within 80 Years," 20 Feb. 2020 Inside Gore’s environmental testing chamber, the ambient air temperature is a balmy 95 degrees Fahrenheit. — Scott Yorko, Popular Mechanics, "The Toughest Jackets on Earth Are Built in This Torture Chamber," 18 Feb. 2020 Experimental treatments included holding the hooked fish vertically versus horizontally, and exposing them to ambient air for 60 seconds compared with leaving them in the water. — Popular Science, "Releasing a caught fish isn’t as simple as tossing it overboard," 11 Feb. 2020 This molecule essentially harvests water from ambient air. — Sophia Chen, Wired, "This Cloth Destroys Deadly Nerve Agents in Minutes," 4 Feb. 2020 The final 16 million tons would be handled by facilities that use industrial processes to capture CO2 from ambient air—which currently exist only as pilot projects. — Scott K. Johnson, Ars Technica, "Here’s what it could cost for California to hit zero-emissions goal," 4 Feb. 2020 And all the device needs to produce power is ambient humidity. — John Timmer, Ars Technica, "Bio-electronic device can produce electricity using nothing but humidity," 17 Feb. 2020 Well, the jet stream was much more powerful than usual, blowing more than 200 miles per hour (mph) and carrying the planes at that high ambient speed. — Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, "Here's What Caused the Fastest New York to London Subsonic Flight Ever," 10 Feb. 2020 Recent Examples on the Web: Noun Together with the bassist Gabe Noel and the electronic percussionist Philippe Melanson, Gendel builds a rubbery sound-space out of the influences of U.K. jungle, ambient music, underground hip-hop and American Minimalism. — Jon Pareles, New York Times, "Lil Yachty featuring Drake and DaBaby, ‘Oprah’s Bank Account’," 13 Mar. 2020 But dogs’ rhinaria are moist, colder than the ambient temperature, and richly endowed with nerves—all of which suggests an ability to detect not just smell, but heat. — Virginia Morell, Science | AAAS, "New sense discovered in dog noses: The ability to detect heat," 28 Feb. 2020 When a dozen or more bees rev their engines at the same time, the cluster can significantly raise the ambient temperature. — National Geographic, "Photos from inside a tree reveal intimate lives of wild honeybees," 8 Feb. 2020 Heat is a particular devil for track and field; conditions on the track (and, uh, field) can be more than 20 degrees above the ambient temperature. — Peter Rubin, Wired, "A First Look at Nike's Gear for the Tokyo Olympics," 5 Feb. 2020 The brand new Sunday Vinyl, by James Beard Award winning Bobby Stuckey, is already the Mile High City’s hottest address, where the ambient music is chosen as carefully as the food and beverage program. — Brandon Presser, Harper's BAZAAR, "Where to Honeymoon in 2020," 6 Jan. 2020 The team compared these measurements with natural ambient noise, including waves, wind, and undersea earthquakes (no military exercises were conducted nearby during the study period). — Katherine Kornei, Science | AAAS, "Minke whales are struggling to communicate over the din of ocean noise," 18 Feb. 2020 Following the 1:08 ambient noise, the association urged each station to continue their regular broadcasting, while keeping the loss of Bryant at the forefront of their unique segments. — Heran Mamo, Billboard, "Every Radio Station in Los Angeles Holds Moment of Silence for Kobe Bryant," 27 Jan. 2020 Perhaps a better question might be why airline seats still recline at all, given how much the ambient space on a plane has been reduced. — Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, "Who's the Jerk in This Airline Video: the Woman Reclining or the Guy Hitting Her Seat?," 13 Feb. 2020

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'ambient.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.