dust
pronunciation
How to pronounce dust in British English:
UK [dʌst]
How to pronounce dust in American English:
US [dʌst]
-
- Noun:
- fine powdery material such as dry earth or pollen that can be blown about in the air
- the remains of something that has been destroyed or broken up
- free microscopic particles of solid material
-
- Verb:
- remove the dust from
- rub the dust over a surface so as to blur the outlines of a shape
- cover with a light dusting of a substance
- distribute loosely
Word Origin
- dust
- dust: [OE] The notion ultimately underlying dust seems to be that of ‘smoke’ or ‘vapour’. It goes back to a prehistoric Indo-European base *dheu-, which also produced Latin fūmus and Sanskrit dhūma- ‘smoke’. A Germanic descendant of this, *dunstu-, picks up the idea of a cloud of fine particles being blown about like smoke, and is the basis of Norwegian dust ‘dust’ and duft ‘finely ground grain’, German duft ‘fragrance’ (from an earlier Middle High German tuft ‘vapour, dew’), and English dust.
- dust (n.)
- Old English dust, from Proto-Germanic *dunstaz (cognates: Old High German tunst "storm, breath," German Dunst "mist, vapor," Danish dyst "milldust," Dutch duist), from PIE *dheu- (1) "dust, smoke, vapor" (cognates: Sanskrit dhu- "shake," Latin fumus "smoke"). Meaning "that to which living matter decays" was in Old English, hence, figuratively, "mortal life."
- dust (v.)
- c. 1200, "to rise as dust;" later "to sprinkle with dust" (1590s) and "to rid of dust" (1560s); from dust (n.). Related: Dusted; dusting. Sense of "to kill" is U.S. slang first recorded 1938 (compare bite the dust under bite (v.)).
Example
- 1. But do you know how easy dust is to control ?
- 2. Reinforced carbon fiber will lock out debris and dust .
- 3. It kicked up a plume of dust and water .
- 4. This infared image shows that dust glowing brightly instead .
- 5. The sanding area was loud and hazy with aluminum dust .