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dirt.

Soil or earth.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/dɜːt/Received-Pronunciation/dɝt/General-American/dɪɾt/Scotland/døːt/New-Zealand, Wales

  1. Soil or earth.

    US · uncountable · usually

  2. A stain or spot (on clothes etc); any foreign substance that worsens appearance.

    uncountable · usually

  3. Previously unknown facts or rumors about a person.

    uncountable · usually
    The reporter uncovered the dirt on the businessman by going undercover.

  4. Meanness; sordidness.

    figuratively · uncountable · usually

  5. In placer mining, earth, gravel, etc., before washing.

    uncountable · usually

  6. Freckles.

    uncountable · usually

  7. Excrement; dung.

    archaic · uncountable · usually
Where this word comes from

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". For a semantic parallel, see Norwegian skitt (“dirt, filth, grime, mud”), from Old Norse skítr (“shit”), which is cognate with English shit.

verb/dɜːt/Received-Pronunciation/dɝt/General-American/dɪɾt/Scotland/døːt/New-Zealand, Wales

  1. To make foul or filthy; soil; befoul; dirty

    rare · transitive
Where this word comes from

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". For a semantic parallel, see Norwegian skitt (“dirt, filth, grime, mud”), from Old Norse skítr (“shit”), which is cognate with English shit.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.