Other forms: manures
Manure is animal waste spread on fields to feed the soil. Spread manure, well-rotted manure, a load of manure.
Fresh manure burns roots and carries pathogens, so it is stacked and rotted first — six months is the usual rule for a vegetable garden. It adds organic matter as well as nutrients, which artificial fertiliser does not. The word first meant to work land by hand.
1nounmanureAnimal waste spread on fields to feed the soil.
“The farmer spread manure on the fields before planting.”
manure is a fertiliser.
Old French manovrer means to work with the hands. Manoeuvre is the same word; manure first meant to cultivate.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₃ep-
Latin
manus — by hand
Vulgar Latin
*manuoperare — work by hand
Old French
manovrer
Anglo-Norman
meinourer
Middle English
maynouren
English, today
manure
Built from
From Middle English maynouren, manuren (“to supervise, toil”), borrowed from Anglo-Norman meinourer and Old French manovrer (whence also English maneuver, or in French manœuvrer) from Vulgar Latin manuoperare (“work by hand”), from Latin manus (“by hand”) + operārī (“to work”). Displaced native (in the plural) Old English mes.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA