dirt

• durt (obsolete)

From Middle English drit (“excrement”), probably 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 dreet (“excrement”), Low German drieten (“to defecate”), Driet (“shit”), regional German Driss (“shit”), Old English ġedrītan (“to defecate”), Albanian ndyrë (“dirty, filthy”).

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: dû(r)t, IPA^(key): /dɜːt/
• (General American) enPR: dûrt, IPA^(key): /dɝt/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)t

dirt (usually uncountable, plural dirts)

1. (chiefly US) Soil or earth.
2. A stain or spot (on clothes etc); any foreign substance that worsens appearance, filth
3. Previously unknown facts, or the invented "facts", about a person; gossip; kompromat

   The reporter uncovered the dirt on the businessman by going undercover.

4. (figuratively) Meanness; sordidness.
   • Melmoth

     honours […] thrown away upon dirt and infamy

5. (mining) In placer mining, earth, gravel, etc., before washing.
6. 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!

dirt (third-person singular simple present dirts, present participle dirting, simple past and past participle dirted)

1. (transitive, rare) To make foul or filthy; soil; befoul; dirty

• tri-D