dirt
See also: Dirt and DIRT
English
Dirt (sense 1, noun).
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”), 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”), Albanian ndyrë (“dirty, filthy”).
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 the invented "facts", about a person.
- Synonyms: gossip, kompromat
- The reporter uncovered the dirt on the businessman by going undercover.
- 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 (translator), Letters of Pliny
- honours […] thrown away upon dirt and infamy
- 1810, W. Melmoth (translator), Letters of Pliny
- (mining) In placer mining, earth, gravel, etc., before washing.
- freckles
- 1983 Pat Phoenix Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt page 158
- I'm one of Charlie's Angels too, but I'm the one with the dirty face.
- 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.
- 2016 Lindsay Bowman, To The Girls With Dirt On Their Faces
- Whatever you love about your freckles, they make you unique and beautiful. Don't always feel that you need to clean that dirt off your face with that foundation powder or contour layers. You're naturally beautiful as you are!
- 1983 Pat Phoenix Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt page 158
Derived terms
- common as dirt
- dig up dirt
- dirt bag
- dirtbag
- dirt bed
- dirt bike
- dirtbrain
- dirt cake
- dirt-cheap
- dirt cheap
- dirt chute
- dirt-dauber
- dirten
- dirt farmer
- dirt file
- dirtful
- dirthole
- dirt jumping
- dirtless
- dirt nap
- dirt pie
- dirt-poor
- dirt poor
- dirt road
- dirt sandwich
- dirtsome
- dirt track
- dirty
- dirt yard
- dish the dirt
- dog dirt
- do someone dirt
- dumb as dirt
- eat dirt
- hit the dirt
- older than dirt
- pay dirt
- permanent dirt
- pound dirt
- take a dirt nap
- throw dirt
- throw dirt on
- treat like dirt
- wood dirt
Translations
unclean matter
|
soil or earth
|
stain or spot (on clothes etc)
|
previously unknown negative information, kompromat
|
Verb
dirt (third-person singular simple present dirts, present participle dirting, simple past and past participle dirted)
- (transitive, rare) To make foul or filthy; soil; befoul; dirty
Anagrams
- tri-D