Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Waste material, especially fecal matter, that is expelled from the body after digestion.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Any matter eliminated as useless from the living body; specifically, the feces.
  • noun Anything growing naturally on the living body, as hair, nails, feathers, etc.; an outgrowth or natural excrescence.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Matter excreted and ejected; that which is excreted or cast out of the animal body by any of the natural emunctories; especially, alvine, discharges; dung; ordure.
  • noun obsolete An excrescence or appendage; an outgrowth.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun obsolete Something which grows out of the body; hair, nails etc.
  • noun archaic Any waste matter excreted from the human or animal body, or discharged by bodily organs.
  • noun now specifically Animal solid waste excreted from the bowels; feces.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun waste matter (as urine or sweat but especially feces) discharged from the body

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin excrēmentum, from excernere, excrē-, to excrete; see excrete.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin excrēmentum, from excrēscere ("to grow out").

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin excrēmentum, from excernere ("to excrete").

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Examples

  • V. i.110 (429,6) [dally with my excrement] The authour has before called the beard _valour's excrement_ in the Merchant of Venice.

    Notes to Shakespeare — Volume 01: Comedies Samuel Johnson 1746

  • Even what we call excrement still stores up the stuff of our lives.

    Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 Sex in Relation to Society Havelock Ellis 1899

  • While there have been many distinguished American winners, including Tom Wolfe and John Updike, bad sex veterans reserve a special place in their hearts for Norman Mailer, who won posthumously in 2007 for a passage in which the word "excrement" is used so alarmingly that it threatens to put a reader off sex for good.

    NYT > Home Page By SARAH LYALL 2011

  • The investigation followed persistent accusations that excrement from the newly arrived unit caused the cholera epidemic.

    Haiti Scrambles to Secure Clean Water Ingrid Arnesen 2010

  • I wonder what those passages can have been like; the residue is replete with an obsessive interest in excrement, disease, sexual mania, and insectlike reproduction, insofar as these apply to Muslims in general and to Muslim immigrants in Europe in particular.

    Holy Writ 2003

  • I wonder what those passages can have been like; the residue is replete with an obsessive interest in excrement, disease, sexual mania, and insectlike reproduction, insofar as these apply to Muslims in general and to Muslim immigrants in Europe in particular.

    Holy Writ 2003

  • As his ideal being he chooses the horse, an animal whose excrement is not offensive.

    Politics vs. Literature: An Examination of Gulliver’s Travels 1946

  • ’ Dali adds firmly that he is not, and that he regards this aberration as ‘repulsive’, but it seems to be only at that point that his interest in excrement stops.

    Benefit Of Clergy: Some Notes On Salvador Dali 1944

  • Scat is simply what wildlife watchers call the excrement or feces of an animal.

    ReadABlog.com New Blogs and RSS Feeds 2009

  • Did you know that a year’s worth of human excrement is equivalent to 2.1 gallons of diesel?

    p2pnet World Headlines – April 17, 2009 2009

Comments

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  • You must have excrement for brains

    July 25, 2011

  • You're the one talking shit.

    July 25, 2011