dirt

«dirt» in Mova's school dictionary: anything that makes things unclean, like mud, dust or grease — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (dirt, uncountable)

meaning for a pupil

1) Dirt is anything that makes things unclean, like mud, dust or grease. tree →

2) Dirt is loose earth or soil. tree →

3) Dirt about someone is gossip or bad secret information (informal). tree →

sense in the lessons

In hygiene lessons, dirt can carry germs, so you wash your hands after playing outside and before eating. In science and gardening, dirt (soil) is where plants grow and worms live. In American English, a dirt road or dirt track is a road with no hard surface. Phrases: covered in dirt, dirt cheap (very cheap), dirt road, dig the dirt.

examples

• Wash the dirt off your hands before dinner. tree →
• The boys came home covered in dirt. tree →
• We planted seeds in the dirt. tree →
• The car bumped along a dirt road. tree →
• There's dirt under your fingernails. tree →
• Worms live in the dirt. tree →
• Its china label was quite coated over with dirt and cobwebs. tree →

note

Uncountable: say "some dirt", "a lot of dirt", not "a dirt" or "dirts". Adjective: dirty. In British English people usually say "soil" for garden earth; Americans often say "dirt". "Dirt cheap" means very cheap.

In the corpora

• Chimps groom each other to remove dirt and bugs, but also to make friends and make up after fights.
• That orange stuff is rust, a brand-new substance, not dirt that has landed on the metal.
• They are strong on purpose, so that they can break down dirt, grease and germs.
• Soap loosens dirt and germs so that water can rinse them away; water alone washes off much less.
• Cleaning products are strong chemicals made to kill germs and dissolve dirt.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «dirt» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.