dung
/ˈdʌŋ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.23 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A tailor's employee, usually one who is paid by the piece rather than by the day.
British usage; Countable; Obsolete; Slang
verb
To immerse or steep, as calico, in a bath of hot water containing cow dung, done to remove the superfluous mordant.
Transitive verb
Example Sentences
- "Poor Tom, that eats the swimming frog, the toad, the todpole, the wall-newt, and the water; that in the fury of his heart, when the foul fiend rages, eats cow-dung for sallets; swallows the old rat and the ditch-dog; drinks the green mantle of the standing pool[…]"
- "Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you away with it."
- "The labourer at the dung cart is paid at 3d. or 4d. a day; and on one estate, Lullington, scattering dung is paid a 5d. the hundred heaps."
- "The farmer whose land the Pratincole had chosen to frequent had such an adversion to birders that he had been thundering up and down all day in a high-powered muck-spreader, splattering them with cow dung!"
- "a cart he found, That carry'd compost forth to dung the ground"
- "She had been dunging the roses and was fairly covered in muck."
Etymology
From Middle English dung, dunge, donge, from Old English dung (“dung; excrement; manure”), from Proto-West Germanic *dungu, from Proto-Germanic *dungō (“dung”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰengʰ- (“to cover”). Superseded non-native Middle English fen (“dung, excrement, filth”), from Old French fien, fiente (“dung, manure”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *dʰengʰ-, dung, dunge, donge, dung, *dungu, *dungō