Ambient is everywhere

The word ambient began its english career innocently enough, as a form of the Latin verb ambire, "to go around," and writers used it to describe something that was lying around or encircling something else. By the end of the 17th century, the meaning of ambient had expanded, so to speak, to describe anything that completely surrounded or circumfused an area or volume, as in the ambient air or ambient light. By the middle of the 20th century, audio engineers spoke of ambient sound (the atmospheric sounds in a particular area, particularly background noise picked up by a microphone), and by the late 1970s audio listeners spoke of ambient music (music that aimed to invoke a particular mood or atmosphere).