ambient

Etymology

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

adj

1. Encompassing on all sides; surrounding; encircling; enveloping.
   A cup of warm tea eventually cools to the ambient temperature.
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.
   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, 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, page 369
   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, page 163

noun

1. Something 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. (astrology) The 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. (uncountable, music) A 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