dirt
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: dû(r)t
ipa: /dɜːt/
enpr: dûrt
ipa: /dɝt/
rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)t
Forms: form: dirts
form: durt
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”).
Senses: glosses: Soil or earth.
synonyms: filth
glosses: A stain or spot (on clothes etc); any foreign substance that worsens appearance.
examples: text: The reporter uncovered the dirt on the businessman by going undercover.
text: 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.
ref: 2011, David Puttnam, Movies and Money, Vintage, →ISBN:
synonyms: gossip
kompromat
glosses: Previously unknown facts or rumors about a person.
examples: text: honours […] thrown away upon dirt and infamy
ref: 1810, W. Melmoth, transl., Letters of Pliny:
glosses: Meanness; sordidness.
topics: business
mining
glosses: In placer mining, earth, gravel, etc., before washing.
examples: text: I'm one of Charlie's Angels too, but I'm the one with the dirty face.
ref: 1983, Pat Phoenix, Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt, page 158:
text: 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.
ref: 2005, Kevin O'Hara, Last of the Donkey Pilgrims: A Man's Journey Through Ireland, page 244:
text: 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!
ref: 2016, Lindsay Bowman, To The Girls With Dirt On Their Faces:
glosses: Freckles.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Judges 3:22:
glosses: Excrement; dung.
Derived terms: bedirt
common as dirt
dig up dirt
dirt bag
dirtbag
dirtball
dirt bed
dirt bike
dirtbike
dirtbird
dirtboard
dirt-box
dirtbrain
dirt cake
dirt cheap
dirt-cheap
dirt chute
dirt dauber
dirt-dauber
dirt devil
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