dross

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English dros, also drosse,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English drōs (“dregs, dirt, filth”),^{[5][3][6][4][7]} from Proto-Germanic *drōhs.^[1][8][3] Its closest relatives are Middle Low German drōs and Middle Dutch droes (“dregs”).^[5][3][6] A longer form, drōsna (genitive plural, dregs), corresponds to Old High German truosana (“lees, dregs”), Middle High German truosen, Dutch droesem and German Drusen (“husks of grapes, lees, dregs”).^[5][3][6][9] Barnhart traces the Germanic form to Proto-Indo-European *dhrāk-s-, from the root Proto-Indo-European *dherāgh- (Pokorny 251),^[3] while Etymonline suggests Proto-Indo-European *dher- (“to make muddy”) only as a possibility.^[8] Klein and Weekley relate it to dreg,^[9][10] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged compares Old Norse dregg (“dreg”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Old English the word glossed Latin sordes (“filth”) and fæx (“dregs”), and also auricula in the sense of earwax.^[7] The OED's first sense, the scum thrown off from metals in melting, comes from an Old English vocabulary in Wright and Wülcker's collection,^[5] and Barnhart dates the Old English word to about 1050.^[3] In Middle English it first appears in the Ancrene Riwle, probably before 1200, where gold and silver are cleansed of their dross in the fire.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

From the scum of metals the word spread to any impure matter mixed with a substance, such as the lees of wine or the chaff of corn, and to refuse or rubbish in general, both first recorded in the Promptorium Parvulorum of about 1440;^[5] Etymonline dates the sense "refuse, rubbish" to the mid 15th century.^[8] The figurative sense, the worthless remainder of something once valued, is from the late 14th century according to Etymonline,^[8] and the Wycliffite Bible of about 1384 already used the word;^[3][2] the OED's first figurative quotation is from 1526.^[5] Johnson (1755) defined it as the scum of metals, quoting Spenser's Faerie Queene.^[11] Green's Dictionary of Slang records dross for gold coins or money in Scottish underworld slang from 1756, after the old moral equation of money with rubbish.^[12] Miners used it for iron pyrites in coal and for small or waste coal (1829), and workmen for protoxide of lead (1875).^[5] Wright recorded the coal sense in Scotland, Yorkshire, Cheshire and Suffolk,^[13] and in north Lincolnshire a verb dross, to overreach someone in a bargain, or among schoolboys to win all of a playmate's marbles.^[13] The standard verb meant to make impure (1648, now obsolete), and later to free from dross (1883) and to turn lead into dross (1891).^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1050 – dregs, filth, and the scum thrown off by molten metal, in Old English.^[3][5]
• before 1200 – the impurities of gold and silver, in the Ancrene Riwle.^[3][2]
• c. 1440 – impure matter in a substance; refuse, rubbish.^[5]
• 1526 – figuratively, worthless matter.^[5]
• 1648 – verb, to make impure (obsolete).^[5]
• 1756 – in slang, gold coins, money.^[12]
• 1829 – iron pyrites in coal; small or waste coal.^[5]
• 1875 – protoxide of lead.^[5]
• 1883 – verb, to remove dross from.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The scum that forms on the surface of molten metal, mostly through oxidation.^[14][4][5]
2. Waste or foreign matter mixed with a substance or left after it has been used; an impurity.^[4][5]
3. Something worthless or commonplace; rubbish: The collection holds a few fine stories among a great deal of dross.^[14][4][5]
4. Small or waste coal.^[5][13]

Verb

1. To remove dross from metal.^[4][5]
2. To convert lead into dross.^[4][5]

Word family

• drossy

Related words

• dreg
• druse

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
8. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
13. ^ a b c Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
14. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins