different between carrion vs dregs

English

Etymology

Old French caroigne (see modern French charogne), from Latin caro (“flesh”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?kæ.?i.?n/

Noun

carrion (usually uncountable, plural carrions)

1. (chiefly uncountable) Dead flesh; carcasses.

   • They did eat the dead carrions.

   • 1922, Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room, Vintage Classics, paperback edition, page 119

     Perhaps the Purple Emperor is feasting, as Morris says, upon a mass of putrid carrion at the base of an oak tree.

2. (countable, obsolete, derogatory) A contemptible or worthless person.

Derived terms

• carrion beetle
• carrion crow

Translations

English

Etymology

See dreg.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /d???z/
• Rhymes: -??z

Noun

dregs pl (plural only)

1. (collectively) The sediment settled at the bottom of a liquid; the lees in a container of unfiltered wine.
2. (figuratively, the dregs) The worst and lowest part of something.

   the dregs of society

   • 1826, Mary Shelley, The Last Man, volume 3, chapter 9

     Yet even now I had not drunk the bitter potion to the dregs; I was not yet persuaded of my loss; I did not yet feel in every pulsation, in every nerve, in every thought, that I remained alone of my race - that I was The Last Man.

Usage notes

• The singular form dreg is far less common, but the phrase to the last dreg still has currency.

Synonyms

• debris, deposit, draff, dross, exuviate, feculence, grounds, grouts, lees, loser, orts, outcast, rabble, refuse, residue, residuum, riffraff, rubbish, scum, sediment, settling, trash, trub

Translations

Anagrams

• regds.