dirt
Forms
- Plural
- dirts
Definitions
1.Soil or earth.
- She washed the dirt off her face.
2.A stain or spot (on clothes etc); any foreign substance that worsens appearance.
- She washed the dirt off her face.
3.Previously unknown facts or rumors about a person.
- The reporter uncovered the dirt on the businessman by going undercover.
- 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.
4.Meanness; sordidness.
- She washed the dirt off her face.
Frequency
Overall
Uncommon· #3098
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Rare
- General reading & writing
- Uncommon
- Academic
- Rare
- Literature
- Uncommon
Related words
Synonyms
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 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”).