Dung is solid animal waste. Cow dung, a dung heap, spread the dung.
It is a resource rather than a nuisance in most of the world: dried dung is fuel where wood is scarce, and dung beetles bury enough of it to be worth real money to cattle farming. Fresh dung burns roots, so it is rotted before it goes on a field.
1noundungSolid animal waste.
“The cows left piles of dung all over the path.”
dung is animal waste.
Old English dung names animal waste, from a Germanic root that may be connected with a word for a covered underground room, where dung was once heaped for warmth.
Proto-Indo-European
*dʰengʰ- — to cover
Proto-Germanic
*dungō — dung
Proto-West Germanic
*dungu
Old English
dung — dung; excrement; manure
Middle English
dung, dunge, donge
English, today
dung
Built from
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 Superseded non-native fen, from fien, fiente (“dung, manure”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA