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.

   3 more examples

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

   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

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

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

   Diggle Station lies high up in the Pennine Chain, subject to extreme low temperatures. With this and heavy snowfall in the winter months, Diggle bids fair to compete with the Scottish lines under similar weather conditions, and the provision of unfrozen water in the higher ambient temperature of the tunnel must be a boon to harassed engine drivers whose thirsty steeds run short of water up the gruelling 1 in 125 seven-mile climb from Stalybridge.

   1959 February 28, “Letters to the Editor: Diggle Water Troughs”, in Railway Magazine, page 135

2. entertainmentEvoking or creating an atmosphere: atmospheric.
3. Relating to, or suitable for, storage at room temperature.

   ambient food

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   ambient warehousing

4. mathematicsContaining objects or describing a setting that one is interested in.

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

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

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   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).

   1996, Moshe Machover, Set Theory, Logic and Their Limitations, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 282

   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.

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

plural ambients

1. countableuncountableSomething that surrounds; encompassing material, substance or shape.

   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.

   1665, Robert Hooke, Micrographia

2. countableuncountableastrologyThe atmosphere; the surrounding air or sky; atmospheric components collectively such as air, clouds, water vapour, hail, etc.

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

   1662 Thomas Salusbury, Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (Dialogue 2)

3. uncountableentertainmentA type of modern music that creates a relaxing and peaceful atmosphere.

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

   1996, SPIN, volume 12, number 3, page 116