dung

[duhng] /dʌŋ/
noun
1.
excrement, especially of animals; manure.
verb (used with object)
2.
to manure (ground) with or as if with dung.
Origin
before 1000; Middle English, Old English; cognate with Low German, German dung; compare Icelandic dyngja heap, dung, Swedish dynga dung, muck, Old High German tunga manuring
Related forms
dungy, adjective
Examples from the web for dung
  • They'll brew beer in dung-tempered pottery or boil it by dropping in hot rocks.
  • But the walls are made of mud and wattle, usually there's a thatched roof, and the floor is a mixture of dung and clay.
  • Take back to green or shade house and broken up and the seed taken with sum dung on it and planted in tubes.
  • The land was pale and hot and smelled faintly of dung.
  • The animals drop their dung in the cave--an enclosed air- space-and they attract biting flies and carry ticks and mites.
  • If you want to know about the life and habitat of a woolly mammoth, there is scarcely a better place to look than in its dung.
  • Soot comes from the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels, and also from the burning of wood or dung for fuel.
  • And the trial proved that the generator can even be fueled by gas produced by local cows' dung.
  • It allowed them to stop using cow dung for their cooking fire.
  • Money studied fungi that grow on cow patties and other herbivore dung.
British Dictionary definitions for dung

dung

/dʌŋ/
noun
1.
  1. excrement, esp of animals; manure
  2. (as modifier): dung cart
2.
something filthy
verb
3.
(transitive) to cover (ground) with manure
Derived Forms
dungy, adjective
Word Origin
Old English: prison; related to Old High German tunc cellar roofed with dung, Old Norse dyngja manure heap
Word Origin and History for dung
n.

Old English dung "manure, fertilizer," common Germanic (cf. Old Frisian and Old Saxon dung "manure;" Old High German tunga "manuring," tung "underground room covered with manure;" German Dung; Old Norse dyngja "heap of manure, women's apartment; Swedish dynga "dung, muck;" Danish dynge "heap, mass, pile"), from PIE *dhengh- "covering" (cf. Lithuanian dengti "to cover," Old Irish dingim "I press").

The word recalls the ancient Germanic custom (reported by Tacitus) of covering underground shelters with manure to keep in warmth in winter. The meaning "animal excrement," whether used as fertilizer or not, is from late 13c.

The whole body of journeymen tailors is divided into two classes, denominated Flints and Dungs: the former work by the day and receive all equal wages; the latter work generally by the piece [1824].
Dung beetle attested by 1630s.

dung in the Bible

(1.) Used as manure (Luke 13:8); collected outside the city walls (Neh. 2:13). Of sacrifices, burned outside the camp (Ex. 29:14; Lev. 4:11; 8:17; Num. 19:5). To be "cast out as dung," a figurative expression (1 Kings 14:10; 2 Kings 9:37; Jer. 8:2; Ps. 18:42), meaning to be rejected as unprofitable. (2.) Used as fuel, a substitute for firewood, which was with difficulty procured in Syria, Arabia, and Egypt (Ezek. 4:12-15), where cows' and camels' dung is used to the present day for this purpose.