# dirt

> English word · Noun · IPA /dɜːt/ · frequency rank #4,752

## Definitions
1. Soil or earth.
2. A stain or spot (on clothes etc); any foreign substance that worsens appearance.
3. Previously unknown facts or rumors about a person.
4. Meanness; sordidness.
5. In placer mining, earth, gravel, etc., before washing.
6. Freckles.
7. Excrement; dung.

## Etymology
From Middle English drit (“excrement”), from Old Norse drit (“excrement”), from Proto-Germanic *dritą, *dritō (“excrement”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰreyd-, *treydʰ- (“to have diarrhea”). Cognate with dialectal Danish and Norn drit (“excrement”), Norwegian dritt (“excrement”), dialectal Swedish dret (“shit”), Faroese and Icelandic drit (“bird excrement”), Dutch drijten (“to defecate”), drits (“dirt, mud, filth”), drijt and dreet (“excrement”), Low German drieten (“to defecate”), Driet (“shit”), regional German Driss (“shit”), Old English ġedrītan (“to defecate”).
The word originally referred to excrement before shifting to the current sense of "soil". For a semantic parallel, see Norwegian skitt (“dirt, filth, grime, mud”), from Old Norse skítr (“shit”), which is cognate with English shit.

## Easily confused with
- **Dr** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/dirt-vs-dr)
- **DT** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/dirt-vs-dt)
- **dry** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/dirt-vs-dry)
- **dot** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/dirt-vs-dot)
- **DIY** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/dirt-vs-diy)
- **dis** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/dirt-vs-dis)
- **Dre** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/dirt-vs-dre)
- **div** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/dirt-vs-div)
- **Dix** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/dirt-vs-dix)
- **DRC** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/dirt-vs-drc)
- **DRM** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/dirt-vs-drm)
- **dit** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/dirt-vs-dit)
- **dor** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/dirt-vs-dor)
- **DNR** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/dirt-vs-dnr)
- **dur** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/dirt-vs-dur)
- **DRI** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/dirt-vs-dri)
- **Dru** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/dirt-vs-dru)
- **DMT** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/dirt-vs-dmt)
- **dont** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/dirt-vs-dont)
- **dust** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/dirt-vs-dust)

## Common misspellings (6)
`ddirt`, `dirrt`, `dirtt`, `ditr`, `drit`, `idrt`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/dirt