dung

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English dunge,^[2] inherited from Old English dung (“manure”),^{[3][4][5][6][7][8]} from Proto-Germanic *dungō.^[3][9] It is cognate with Old Frisian dung and Old Saxon dung (“manure”), Old High German tunga (“manuring”) and tung (“underground room covered with manure”), Middle Dutch donge and German Dung, and, with a mutated vowel, Old Norse dyngja (“heap of manure; women's apartment”), Swedish dynga (“dung, muck”) and Danish dynge (“heap, pile”).^{[3][5][4][6][7]} A form of the Germanic base was borrowed as Finnish tunkio (“rubbish heap”).^[4] The further origin is uncertain and disputed.^[4][7][6] The original meaning is often taken to be "covering", relating it to Lithuanian dengti (“to cover”) and an Indo-European base Proto-Indo-European *dhengh- (“to cover”);^{[4][3][2][5][10]} Merriam-Webster and Orel also compare Old Irish dingid (“he suppresses”).^[11][9] Taking "heap" as the first sense, others relate it to the base of ding, to strike,^[4] and Skeat saw it as answering in form to a past participle of that verb, "what is thrown down or away".^[12] Etymonline and Klein recall the custom, reported by Tacitus, of Germanic peoples covering their shelters with manure to keep out the cold.^[3][2] The verb is inherited from Middle English dungen, inherited from Old English dyngan (“to manure”), formed from the same Germanic base, and was later re-formed from the noun.^[4][3][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Manure, spread on the soil to make it fertile: late Old English, in Ælfric's Glossary, about 1000, according to Barnhart;^[5] the OED's first record is the Antwerp-London Glossary.^[4] In the Old English Gospel of Luke (13:8), the gardener offers to dig round the barren fig tree and spread dung on it: ic hine bedelfe, and ic hine beweorpe mid dunne.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Ayto notes that the word's etymological sense is material spread over the earth, rather than excrement.^[10] The OED nonetheless records the excrement of animals in Old English glosses,^[4] though Etymonline dates the meaning "animal excrement, whether used as fertilizer or not" to the late 13th century.^[3] Old English also had the word for an underground prison or dungeon, which the OED enters under its own headword (until about 1300), perhaps from the same base.^{[4][8][13][14]} From about 1300 dung meant dirt or refuse in general, including a town's waste.^[4] In religious writing, from the Ancrene Riwle of about 1225, it stood for what is morally corrupt or vile,^[4][6] and until the 19th century for the human body as mortal and decaying.^[4] Johnson (1755) defined it as the excrement of animals used to fatten ground.^[15] In tailors' slang a dung was, from 1765, a journeyman who accepted low or piece rates and worked when others struck, as against the flints;^{[4][16][3][17]} Green explains that dung is soft and disgusting, while the union man is hard.^[16] The verb meant to manure land in Old English, to defecate from 1508, and in dyeing, from 1824, to steep cloth in a dung bath to remove surplus mordant.^[4][11][6] The dung beetle is named by the 1630s.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1000 – manure, in Ælfric's Glossary.^[5] The OED also records in Old English the senses excrement and, as a verb, to manure.^[4]
• c. 1225 – something morally vile.^[4]
• c. 1300 – dirt, refuse.^[4]
• 1508 – verb, to defecate.^[4]
• 1577 – a chemical or mineral fertilizer (obsolete by 1928).^[4]
• 1630s – dung beetle.^[3]
• 1765 – tailors' slang, a journeyman who works for low rates.^[4][16]
• 1824 – dyeing, to steep cloth in a dung bath.^[4]
• 1828 – to clean the dung out of a stable.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. The excrement of animals: The path was littered with sheep dung.^[14][11][4]
2. Manure.^[11][14][4]
3. Something vile or loathsome; filth.^[11][14][4]

Verb

1. To fertilize land with dung or manure.^[14][11][4]
2. Of an animal, to defecate.^[11][4]
3. (dyeing) To steep printed cloth in a dung bath.^[11][4]

Word family

• dungy
• dunghill
• dung beetle

Related words

• dingy
• ding
• dungeon

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
9. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
12. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ Clark Hall, J. R. (1960), A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed., with a supplement by H. D. Meritt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
14. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
17. ^ 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)