dung
Americannoun
verb (used with object)
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dungs,
present (3rd person singular)
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dunged,
past participle, past
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dunging
present participle
noun
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-
excrement, esp of animals; manure
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( as modifier )
dung cart
-
-
something filthy
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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dungsimple
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dungssimple
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have dungedperfect
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has dungedperfect
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am dungingprogressive
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are dungingprogressive
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is dungingprogressive
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have been dungingperfect progressive
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has been dungingperfect progressive
Past
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dungedsimple
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had dungedperfect
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was dungingprogressive
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were dungingprogressive
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had been dungingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of dung
before 1000; Middle English, Old English; cognate with Low German, German dung; compare Icelandic dyngja heap, dung, Swedish dynga dung, muck, Old High German tunga manuring
Explanation
Dung means animal droppings or waste. If you work at an elephant sanctuary, you're likely to spend a lot of time shoveling up elephant dung. Dung is a tidy word for an untidy substance — animal poop. When farmers talk about cow dung or chicken dung, they'll probably call it manure instead. Some dung causes problems, like the runoff of pig dung into lakes and rivers, while other dung is used to help fertilize vegetable gardens. Dung is an Old English word, from a Germanic root — in Old High German, a tung was an underground room that was covered with dung for warmth.
Vocabulary lists containing dung
Metaphors from Top AP English Exam Novels
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Home of the Brave
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"Death of a Naturalist" by Seamus Heaney
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The other investigated fossilized dung, known scientifically as coprolites.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 5, 2026
During the hottest hours, many retreat to makeshift huts -- frames of sticks draped with coarse homespun cloth, plastered with wild donkey dung.
From Barron's ● May 10, 2026
In “The Getaway”—filmed twice for the big screen—Doc and Carol McCoy conclude their escape hiding in caves, then a hut made of dung, before they end up in the infernal domain of El Rey.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 2, 2026
“Powdered stone worked. So did lizard’s blood and crocodile dung, and pig’s teeth and dolphin’s genitalia and frog’s sperm,” as psychologist Irving Kirsch later explained it.
From Slate ● Jan. 30, 2026
A faint, foul smell of horse dung drifted from the boy.
From "When the Sea Turned to Silver" by Grace Lin
He seldom sat down, but strayed about with nervous movements, picking dungs up and setting them down without looking at them, walking to windows and looking out but seeing nothing.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
When it was gone, hot not before, the Wart knew certain dungs about it—dungs which he had not had time to notice while the boar was there.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
Those who submitted, were by the mutineers styled dungs, i.e. dunghills.
From 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Francis Grose
At this point Hazlitt reproduces in a footnote one of Scott’s historical quotations in “Ivanhoe.” flints and dungs.
From Hazlitt on English Literature An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature by Jacob Zeitlin
When the tongues were first taken in to be sliced, two round buffalo dungs together with a ball of sweetgrass were given to the man and woman.
From The Sun Dance of the Blackfoot Indians by Clark Wissler
The soil from which he bloomed was richly dunged.
From The New Yorker ● Sep. 21, 2018
It is fixed by oxidation at 30° to 35° C., and dunged with cow-dung and chalk.
From Scientific American Supplement, No. 286, June 25, 1881 by Various
And 'twas with justice too; did they not break down my black fig tree, which I had planted and dunged with my own hands?
From The Eleven Comedies, Volume 1 by Aristophanes
I digged about it, I dunged it; I gained time, and supplied it with means; but I laboured herein in vain, and spent my strength for nought, and in vain!
From Works of John Bunyan — Volume 03 by John Bunyan
Hast thou been digg'd about and dunged too, Will neither patience nor yet dressing do?
From Works of John Bunyan — Volume 03 by John Bunyan
But as for our Monkish Antiquaries, and the Monastick Learning, it seems to be reserv'd for the Improvement of those, whose Minds, like barren Soils, will never bear without dunging.
From An Essay on Criticism by John Oldmixon
In dunging corn in the holes, put two in a hill on any kind of soil where corn will grow, and you will have a good crop.
From The Stronghold A Story of Historic Northern Neck of Virginia and Its People by Miriam Haynie
A man with expense and infinite toil, By digging and dunging, ennobled his soil; There fruits of the best your taste did invite, And uniform order still courted the sight.
From The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume 2 by William Ernst Browning
And thus much for the fashion, digging, and dunging of gardens.
From The English Husbandman The First Part: Contayning the Knowledge of the true Nature of euery Soyle within this Kingdome: how to Plow it; and the manner of the Plough, and other Instruments by Gervase Markham
And so I ought," answered Sancho; "for some of your worship's wisdom must needs stick to me; as dry and barren soil, by well dunging and digging, comes at last to bear good fruit.
From The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
