turd

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English tord, also turd,^[2][3] inherited from Old English tord (“piece of dung”),^[4][5][6][7] from Proto-Germanic *turdą.^{[6][8][9][10]} It is cognate with Middle Dutch tort, torde and Dutch tort,^[4][8][11] Old High German zort (“dung”),^[10] and the first part of Old Norse tordýfill (“dung beetle”), like tordwifel, a word made with the ancestor of weevil.^[4][11] The OED calls the Germanic base of uncertain origin, perhaps a weak past participle of the base of tear;^[4] Hoad, Watkins and Ayto reconstruct an Indo-European past participle formation on Proto-Indo-European *der- (“to split, flay”), so that the word first meant something torn off or separated from the body.^[8][6][9] Holthausen compares Latvian dirst (“to defecate”).^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

A lump of dung: swines tord in Bald's Leechbook, about 1000.^[4][13][5]

Semantic evolution

From about 1275 the word stood for anything worthless, as in not worth a turd: the poem The Owl and the Nightingale has A tord ne yeue ic for eu alle.^[4][6] It was still a plain word in Wycliffe's Bible (1382), where Philippians 3:8 has toordis and the King James Version has dung.^[6][14] The insult for a contemptible person is recorded from about 1400 in the OED,^[4] from the mid-15th century in Etymonline and Green.^[6][13] According to Green, the word was shut out of polite speech and dictionaries by the late 18th century, though it has slowly returned in speech;^[13] the OED notes that the 1915 comment "Not now in polite use" still broadly holds.^[4] Recent uses are polish a turd, to try to improve something that is bad by nature (1976), and the sense rubbish or trash (1978).^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1000 – a lump of dung.^[4][13]
• c. 1275 – a type of something worthless: not worth a turd.^[4][6]
• c. 1400 – a contemptible person.^[4]
• 1976 – polish a turd.^[4]
• 1978 – rubbish, trash.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (vulgar) A lump of excrement; also excrement in general.^{[15][2][4][13]}
2. (vulgar, slang) A contemptible or unpleasant person.^[15][2][4]
3. (vulgar, slang) Something worthless; rubbish.^[4]
4. polish a turd: to try to improve something that is bad by nature.^[4]

Related words

• tear
• treddle
• weevil

Usage notes

The OED counts the literal use as only mildly vulgar, less so than shit or crap, while uses of people are usually derogatory.^[4] Wright's dialect dictionary records it in Scotland and northern and eastern England, with forms such as tird, teard and teurd.^[16]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
6. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
11. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
13. ^ a b c d e Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
14. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
15. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
16. ^ 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)