From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Environment \En*vi"ron*ment\, noun [Cf. F. environnement.]
1. Act of environing; state of being environed.
2. That which environs or surrounds; surrounding conditions, influences, or forces, by which living forms are influenced and modified in their growth and development.
It is no friendly environment, this of thine. --Carlyle.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
noun
1: the totality of surrounding conditions; "he longed for the comfortable environment of his livingroom"
2: the area in which something exists or lives; "the country--the flat agricultural surround" [syn: {environs}, {surroundings}, {surround}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
49 Moby Thesaurus words for "environment": ambience, ambient, atmosphere, backdrop, background, cincture, circling, circumambience, circumambiency, circumcincture, circumflexion, circumjacence, circumposition, circumstances, climate, conditions, containment, context, ecosystem, embracement, encincture, encirclement, enclosure, encompassment, enfoldment, envelopment, environs, existing conditions, full particulars, girding, girdling, habitat, inclusion, ins and outs, involvement, locale, medium, milieu, mise-en-scene, set of conditions, setting, situation, status, status quo, surrounding, surroundings, territory, total situation, whole picture
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:
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