different between dirt vs bemire

English

Alternative forms

• durt (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English drit (“excrement”), from Old Norse drit (“excrement”), from Proto-Germanic *drit?, *drit? (“excrement”), from Proto-Indo-European *d?reyd-, *treyd?- (“to have diarrhea”). Cognate with Norwegian dritt (“excrement”), Icelandic drit (“bird excrement”), Dutch drijten (“to defecate”), drits (“dirt, mud, filth”) and dreet (“excrement”), Low German drieten (“to defecate”), Driet (“shit”), regional German Driss (“shit”), Old English ?edr?tan (“to defecate”), Albanian ndyrë (“dirty, filthy”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: dû(r)t, IPA^(key): /d??t/
• (General American) enPR: dûrt, IPA^(key): /d?t/
• Rhymes: -??(?)t

Noun

dirt (usually uncountable, plural dirts)

1. (chiefly US) Soil or earth.
2. A stain or spot (on clothes etc); any foreign substance that worsens appearance.

   Synonym: filth

3. Previously unknown facts, or the invented "facts", about a person.

   Synonyms: gossip, kompromat
4. (figuratively) Meanness; sordidness.
   • 1810, W. Melmoth (translator), Letters of Pliny

     honours […] thrown away upon dirt and infamy

5. (mining) In placer mining, earth, gravel, etc., before washing.
6. freckles
   • 1983 Pat Phoenix Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt page 158

     I'm one of Charlie's Angels too, but I'm the one with the dirty face.

   • 2005 Kevin O'Hara, "Last of the Donkey Pilgrims: A Man's Journey Through Ireland" page 244

     a dirty-faced redhead poked a soiled kerchief beneath my nose, and charmlessly wheedled, "Spare coppers, mister, Spare coppers!" This runny-nosed waif, a "knacker" in the Dublin vernacular, was of the traveling breed who had of late given up their painted wagons for the grimy ghettos of the city. The child -God Bless the Mark- had freckles that splotched her face as though God had applied them too hurriedly with a blunt brush.

   • 2016 Lindsay Bowman, To The Girls With Dirt On Their Faces

     Whatever you love about your freckles, they make you unique and beautiful. Don't always feel that you need to clean that dirt off your face with that foundation powder or contour layers. You're naturally beautiful as you are!

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

dirt (third-person singular simple present dirts, present participle dirting, simple past and past participle dirted)

1. (transitive, rare) To make foul or filthy; soil; befoul; dirty

Anagrams

• tri-D

English

Etymology

From Middle English *bemyren (possibly attested in Middle English bemyred), equivalent to be- (“all over”) +? mire.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /b??ma??/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /b??ma???/

Verb

bemire (third-person singular simple present bemires, present participle bemiring, simple past and past participle bemired)

1. (archaic) To soil with mud or a similar substance.
   • 1603, John Davies, The Discovery of the Little World, with the Government Thereof, Oxford, p. 118,^[1]

     The Minde, constrain’d the Bodies want to feele,

     Makes Salves of Earth the Bodies hurt to heale,

     Which doe the Mind bemire with thoughts vnfitt;

   • 1684, Nahum Tate (translator), “The Second Eclogue” in John Dryden (ed.), Miscellany Poems, London: Jacob Tonson, p. 13,^[2]

     Ah me! while I fond wretch indulge my Dreams,

     Winds blast my Flow’rs, and Boars bemire my Streams.

   • 1726, Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, London: Benjamin Motte, Part II, Chapter 5, pp. 99-100,^[3]

     There was a Cow-Dung in the Path, and I must needs try my Activity by attempting to leap over it. I took a Run, but unfortunately jumped short, and found my self just in the Middle up to my Knees. I waded through with some Difficulty, and one of the Footmen wiped me as clean as he could with his Handkerchief; for I was filthily bemired […]

   • 1847, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, Chapter 29,^[4]

     I wished to rise; but what could I put on? Only my damp and bemired apparel; in which I had slept on the ground and fallen in the marsh.

2. (archaic) To immerse or trap in mire.
   • 1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress, London: Nath. Ponder, pp. 13-14,^[5],[6]

     True, there are by the direction of the Law-giver, certain good and subs[tantial] Steps, placed even through the very midst of this Slough; but at such a time as this place doth much spue out [its filth] as it doth against change of weather, these steps are hardly seen; or if they be, Men through the diziness of their heads, step besides; and then they are bemired to purpose, notwithstanding the steps be there […]

   • 1802, Rembrandt Peale, Account of the Skeleton of the Mammoth, a Non-Descript Carnivorous Animal of Immense Size Found in America, London, p. 38,^[7]

     In two of the morasses there was not depth sufficient to have bemired an animal of such magnitude and strength […]

   • 1888, Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow, Book I, Chapter 2,^[8]

     I saw your horse bemired, and put him from his agony; which, by my sooth! an ye had been a more merciful rider, ye had done yourself.

   • 1912, Alice C. Thompson, The Good Old Days: A Comedy in One Act, Philadelphia: Penn Publishing, p. 9,^[9]

     Likely the stage-coach is bemired. The roads at this season of the year are none too good.

3. (figuratively) To stain or mar, as with infamy or disgrace; to tarnish; to sully.

Anagrams

• berime, bireme