Dung Meaning
/ˈdʌŋ/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounManure; animal excrement.
nounA type of manure, as from a particular species or type of animal.
Sentence Examples
Rotten wood cannot be carved; walls of dung cannot be worked with a trowel.
You ask me, child, what love is? A star in a pile of dung.
The dung beetle started to roll a ball away.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
None
CEFR Practice Quiz
The gardener spread fresh ____ around the rose bushes for fertilizer.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Rotten wood cannot be carved walls of ____ cannot be worked with a trowel.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English dung, dunge, donge, from Old English dung (“dung; excrement; manure”), from Proto-West Germanic *dungu, from Proto-Germanic *dungō (“dung”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰengʰ- (“to cover”). Superseded non-native Middle English fen (“dung, excrement, filth”), from Old French fien, fiente (“dung, manure”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Poor Tom, that eats the swimming frog, the toad, the todpole, the wall-newt, and the water; that in the fury of his heart, when the foul fiend rages, eats cow-dung for sallets; swallows the old rat and the ditch-dog; drinks the green mantle of the standing pool[…]"
— c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iv], line 129:
"Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you away with it."
— 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Malachi 2:3:
"The labourer at the dung cart is paid at 3d. or 4d. a day; and on one estate, Lullington, scattering dung is paid a 5d. the hundred heaps."
— 1882, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, volume 4, page 496:
"The farmer whose land the Pratincole had chosen to frequent had such an adversion to birders that he had been thundering up and down all day in a high-powered muck-spreader, splattering them with cow dung!"
— 1983, Bill Oddie, Gone Birding, London: Methuen, page 59:
"a cart he found, That carry'd compost forth to dung the ground"
— 1700, [John] Dryden, “The Cock and the Fox: Or, The Tale of the Nun’s Priest, from Chaucer”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:
Explore More B2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The gardener spread fresh ____ around the rose bushes for fertilizer.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Rotten wood cannot be carved walls of ____ cannot be worked with a trowel.