excrement
pronunciation
How to pronounce excrement in British English:
UK [ˈekskrɪmənt]
How to pronounce excrement in American English:
US [ˈɛkskrəmənt]
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- Noun:
- waste matter (as urine or sweat but especially feces) discharged from the body
Word Origin
- excrement
- excrement: [16] Latin excrēmentum meant originally ‘that which is sifted out’ (it was a derivative of the verb excernere, a compound formed from the prefix ex- ‘out’ and cernere ‘sift, decide’, from which English gets certain). Hence it was applied metaphorically to any substance that is excreted from or secreted by the body, including sweat, nasal mucus, and milk, as well as faeces. (English acquired excrete [17], incidentally, from the past participle of excernere, excrētus.) This very general sense survived in English into the mid 18th century, when it was finally ousted by the more specific ‘faeces’. (Increment, by the way, is a completely unrelated word, coming ultimately from Latin crēscere ‘grow’.)=> certain, crime, critic, discern, discriminate, secret
- excrement (n.)
- 1530s, "waste discharged from the body," from Latin excrementum, from stem of excretus, past participle of excernere "to sift out, discharge," from ex- "out" (see ex-) + cernere "sift, separate" (see crisis). Originally any bodily secretion, especially from the bowels; exclusive sense of "feces" is since mid-18c. Related: Excremental; excrementitious.
Example
- 1. Due to the high volume of human waste , trucks have been dumping excrement and medical waste nearby .
- 2. My main role was to analyse human excrement .
- 3. Mostly used to describe the motion a dog performs after a bowl movement to wipe off excess excrement -- using the front legs to pull his body along while in a sitting position .
- 4. As he grubbed in the rain-filled gutter to pick up dog shit , human excrement and blackened , rotten vegetables , stowing them in the basket he carried on his head , he brushed what seemed to be a pile of rags , and it moved a little .
- 5. In more than nine hours of hiking the team finds no panda droppings only the excrement of a black bear which looks like spilled coffee grounds .