ordure
Americannoun
noun
-
excrement; dung
-
something regarded as being morally offensive
Other Word Forms
- ordurous adjective
Etymology
Origin of ordure
1300–50; Middle English < Old French, equivalent to ord filthy (< Latin horridus horrid ) + -ure -ure
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.
“Though purple may have symbolized a higher order, it reeked of a lower ordure,” Dr. Grovier writes in his book, “The Art of Colour.”
From New York Times
Government entomologists imported dozens of species of beetles to address several problems, among them fouled pastures, slowing decomposition and disease-carrying flies in ordure.
From New York Times
“It is I, Abigail,” she says, standing there with ordure on her dress, having been booted out of a carriage.
From The New Yorker
The alternative — trying to cram all this ordure back into its closet and forget we ever saw it — is, I hope, unthinkable.
From New York Times
Dog-fouling is a 20th-century, quintessentially urban problem: before the arrival of the automobile, the ordure you had to worry about was from horses.
From The Guardian
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.
