manure
Part of speech: verb
noun
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: From Middle English maynouren, manuren (“to supervise, toil”), borrowed from Anglo-Norman meinourer and Old French manovrer (whence also English maneuver, or in French manœuvrer) from Vulgar Latin *manuoperare (“work by hand”), from Latin manū (“by hand”) + operārī (“to work”). Displaced native (in the plural) Old English mes.
Inflected forms:
form: manures
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: manuring
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: manured
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: manured
pos: verb
tags: past
form: manures
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: To cultivate by manual labor; to till; hence, to develop by culture.
pos: verb
tags: archaic
literary
examples: A woman that wandring in our coaſtes hath bought / A plot for price: where ſhe a citie ſet: / To whom we gaue the ſtrond for to manure.
Manure thyself then; to thyself be approved; / And with vain, outward things be no more moved.
gloss: To apply manure (as fertilizer or soil improver).
pos: verb
examples: The farmer manured his fallow field.
My Lord of Hereford here whom you call King, / Is a foule traitour to proud Herefords King, / And if you crowne him let me propheſie, / The bloud of Engliſh ſhall manure the ground, / And future ages groane for this foule act, [...]
gloss: Animal excrement, especially that of common domestic farm animals and when used as fertilizer. Generally speaking, from cows, horses, sheep, pigs and chickens.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: 1985, Biff Tannen (portrayed by Thomas F. Wilson), Back to the Future.
I hate manure!
1988, Dave Mustaine, "Hook in Mouth", Megadeth, So Far, So Good... So What!.
M, they will cover your grave with manure
[T]he very wet winter will have washed much of the goodness out of the soil. Homemade compost and the load of manure we get from a friendly farmer may not be enough to compensate for what has leached from the ground.
gloss: Any fertilizing substance, whether of animal origin or not; fertiliser.
pos: noun
tags: broadly
countable
uncountable
examples: vegetable manure [⁠= green manure⁠]
livestock manures
Malt dust consists chiefly of the infant radicle separated from the grain. I have never made any experiment upon this manure; but there is great reason to suppose it must contain saccharine matter; and this will account for its powerful effects.
The roots of plants, disengaged from the soil in the process of tilling and cleaning it, are also employed as a vegetable manure. Some of these, however, as the couch grass, being very vivacious, would readily spring again: and therefore it is necessary that their vegetative powers be destroyed, which may be done by mixing them with lime, and forming in this way a compost. Many farmers, however, to save time, or to prevent the risk of the plants springing again, burn them in little heaps upon the ground at the time of their being collected, and spread the ashes upon the surface. This may be sometimes convenient, but the effect is, that the principal nutritive part of the plant is dissipated, and nothing left but the carbonaceous, earthy, and other insoluble matter. —Low's Elements of Practical Agriculture.
gloss: Rubbish; nonsense; bullshit.
pos: noun
tags: countable
euphemistic
uncountable
examples: “You know the police think I killed Marge, don't you?”
“What a load of manure! I couldn't believe it when I read the paper.”
Related words: to fertilize
fertilizer
muck
Derived words: manurable
manurer
overmanure
remanure
green manure
horse manure
humanure
manurage
manurance
manure fork
manureless
manurelike
manure spreader
manurey
manurial
poor man's manure
Translations: