dirt
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Dirt (sense 1, noun).
English
Alternative forms
- durt (obsolete)
Etymology
From Middle English drit (“excrement”), from Old Norse drit (“excrement”), from Proto-Germanic *dritą, *dritō (“excrement”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰreyd-, *treydʰ- (“to have diarrhea”). Cognate with Norwegian dritt (“excrement”), dialectal Swedish dret (“shit”), Icelandic drit (“bird excrement”), Dutch drijten (“to defecate”), drits (“dirt, mud, filth”) and drijt, dreet (“excrement”), Low German drieten (“to defecate”), Driet (“shit”), regional German Driss (“shit”), Old English ġedrītan (“to defecate”). (Can this(+) etymology be sourced?)
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) enPR: dû(r)t, IPA(key): /dɜːt/
- (General American) enPR: dûrt, IPA(key): /dɝt/
Audio (US): (file) - Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)t
Noun
dirt (usually uncountable, plural dirts)
- (chiefly US) Soil or earth.
- A stain or spot (on clothes etc); any foreign substance that worsens appearance.
- Synonym: filth
- Previously unknown facts or rumors about a person.
- 2011, David Puttnam, Movies and Money, Vintage, →ISBN:
- Perhaps inevitably, as the manipulation of the stars' public images became ever more rigorous, so too did the efforts of gossip columnists such as Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper to uncover dirt and scandal.
- (figurative) Meanness; sordidness.
- 1810, W. Melmoth, transl., Letters of Pliny:
- honours […] thrown away upon dirt and infamy
- (mining) In placer mining, earth, gravel, etc., before washing.
- Freckles.
- 2005, Kevin O'Hara, Last of the Donkey Pilgrims: A Man's Journey Through Ireland, page 244:
- a dirty-faced redhead poked a soiled kerchief beneath my nose, and charmlessly wheedled, "Spare coppers, mister, Spare coppers!" This runny-nosed waif, a "knacker" in the Dublin vernacular, was of the traveling breed who had of late given up their painted wagons for the grimy ghettos of the city. The child -God Bless the Mark- had freckles that splotched her face as though God had applied them too hurriedly with a blunt brush.
- (archaic) Excrement; dung.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, Judges 3:22:
- And the haft also went in after the blade: and the fatte closed vpon the blade, so that hee could not drawe the dagger out of his belly, and the dirt came out.
Derived terms
- bedirt
- common as dirt
- dig up dirt
- dirtbag
- dirt bag
- dirtball
- dirt bed
- dirt bike
- dirtbike
- dirtbird
- dirtboard
- dirt-box
- dirtbrain
- dirt cake
- dirt cheap
- dirt-cheap
- dirt chute
- dirt dauber
- dirt-dauber
- dirten
- dirtfall
- dirt farmer
- dirt farming
- dirt file
- dirtful
- dirthead
- dirthole
- dirt jumping
- dirtless
- dirtlike
- dirtman
- dirt nap
- dirt pie
- dirt-poor
- dirt poor
- dirtproof
- dirt road
- dirt sandwich
- dirtside
- dirtsome
- dirt sticks
- dirt track
- dirtwad
- dirty
- dirt yard
- dish the dirt
- dog dirt
- do someone dirt
- dumb as dirt
- eat dirt
- fill dirt
- hit the dirt
- older than dirt
- pay dirt
- permanent dirt
- pound dirt
- snirt
- take a dirt nap
- throw dirt
- throw dirt on
- treat like dirt
- washdirt
- white dirt
- wood dirt
Translations
unclean matter
|
soil or earth
|
stain or spot (on clothes etc)
|
previously unknown negative information, kompromat
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Verb
dirt (third-person singular simple present dirts, present participle dirting, simple past and past participle dirted)