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Added 8 October 2026

dirt

/dɜːt/ noun

In Latin: caenum, sordēs Wiktionary

noun Definition from WordNet 3.1, Princeton University. Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about dirt at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

The part of the earth's surface consisting of humus and disintegrated rock.
The state of being covered with unclean things.
Obscene terms for feces.

adjective

(of roads) not leveled or drained; unsuitable for all year travel.

Origin

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 dialectal Danish and Norn drit (“excrement”), Norwegian dritt (“excrement”), dialectal Swedish dret (“shit”), Faroese and Icelandic drit (“bird excrement”), Dutch drijten (“to defecate”), drits (“dirt, mud, filth”), drijt and dreet (“excrement”), Low German drieten (“to defecate”), Driet (“shit”), regional German Driss (“shit”), Old English ġedrītan (“to defecate”). The word originally referred to excrement before shifting to the current sense of "soil".

From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)

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