dung

Noun

dung (countable and uncountable, plural dungs)

1. (uncountable) Manure; animal excrement.
   • 1605, William Shakespeare, King Lear, act III, scene iv, line 129

     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 […]

   • 1611, Authorized King James Version, Malachi 2:3

     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.

   • 1882, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, volume 4, page 496

     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.

2. (countable) A type of manure, as from a particular species or type of animal.

Verb

dung (third-person singular simple present dungs, present participle dunging, simple past and past participle dunged)

1. (transitive) To fertilize with dung.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of John Dryden to this entry?)

   • 1993, Henry Leach, Endure No Makeshifts: Some Naval Recollections

     She had been dunging the roses and was fairly covered in muck.

2. (transitive, calico printing) To immerse or steep, as calico, in a bath of hot water containing cow dung, done to remove the superfluous mordant.
3. (intransitive) To void excrement.

Verb

dung

1. (obsolete) past participle of ding

Verb

dung (third-person singular simple present dungs, present participle dunging, simple past and past participle dunged)

1. (colloquial) To discard (especially rubbish); to chuck out.

Alternative forms

• ding

Noun

dung f (nominative plural dyng)

1. dungeon, prison

Alternative forms

• ding

Noun

dung f

1. dung, manure

Derived terms