dunghill
Americannoun
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a heap of dung
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a foul place, condition, or person
Etymology
Origin of dunghill
Middle English word dating back to 1275–1325; see origin at dung, hill
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.
He once described himself to one of his children as “a machine condemned to devour books and then throw them, in a changed form, on the dunghill of history.”
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 3, 2016
Jefferson said the work was like extracting diamonds from a dunghill.
From Salon ● May 31, 2012
Outside New Delhi, where one Indian critic relegated it to "the dunghill of propaganda," Maxwell's assessment is widely accepted.
From Time Magazine Archive
The year of Reinhardt's arrival in Berlin was a period of intense realism in the Teutonic theatre, when every dunghill and sweat bead in the dialogue found its concrete embodiment on the stage.
From Time Magazine Archive
At high noon he was waked by Gerard moving, and found him sitting up with the straw smoking round him like a dunghill.
From The Cloister and the Hearth A Tale of the Middle Ages by Reade, Charles
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.
