- dirt
[dirt 词源字典] - dirt: [13] Dirt was originally drit, and meant ‘excrement’ (it was borrowed from Old Norse drit, which goes back to a prehistoric Germanic base *drit- that also produced Dutch dreet ‘excrement’). The toned-down sense ‘soiling substance’ is of equal antiquity with ‘excrement’ in English, and the modern English form dirt first appeared in the 15th century, by a process known as metathesis in which two sounds are reversed.
[dirt etymology, dirt origin, 英语词源] - dirt (n.)
- 15c. metathesis of Middle English drit, drytt "mud, dirt, dung" (c. 1300), from Old Norse drit, cognate with Old English dritan "to void excrement," from Proto-Germanic *dritan (cognates: Dutch drijten, Old High German trizan). Used abusively of persons from c. 1300. Meaning "gossip" first attested 1926 (in Hemingway); dirt bike is 1960s. Dirt-cheap is from 1821. Dirt road attested by 1852.
