- environment
- c.1600, "state of being environed" (see environs); sense of "nature, conditions in which a person or thing lives" first recorded 1827 (used by Carlyle to render Ger. Umgebung); specialized ecology sense first recorded 1956. Environmentalism was coined 1923 as a psychological term (in the nature vs. nurture debate); the ecological sense is 1972 (environmentalist in this sense is attested from 1970).