Word.ws English Dictionary

bark dust

bark dust noun: shredded, ground, or chipped wood used for landscaping, gardening, or composting.

bark dust: shredded, ground, or chipped wood used for landscaping, gardening, or composting
Image: Glen Bledsoe, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

bark dust (uncountable)

  1. (chiefly Oregon) Shredded, ground, or chipped wood used for landscaping, gardening, or composting.
    • Forest Floor Bark Dust / Freshly Ground / Perfect For Yard Gardening / Controls Weeds • [unclear] soil / Adds [unclear] • Keeps Soil Moist1969, W. B. Bollen, [packaging of a bag of commercial bark dust], quoted in Properties of Tree Barks in Relation to Their Agricultural Utilization, Portland: U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S.D.A....
    • Have you ever walked through bark dust barefoot? After gingerly stepping through you pause quickly to inspect the sole of your feet and brush away the visible splinters, then continue on your way.1988, Wendy Ann Wood, Vicki P., “Slivers”, in Julie Livingston, editor, Triumph Over Darkness: Understanding and Healing the Trauma of Childhood Sexual Abuse, 2nd edition, Hillsboro: Beyond Words...
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see bark, dust.

Origin of bark dust

The timber industry was prominent in Oregon and surrounding areas from roughly 1870–2000, which is apparently connected to the term's regionality.

Questions about bark dust

What does bark dust mean?
Bark dust means shredded, ground, or chipped wood used for landscaping, gardening, or composting.
What part of speech is bark dust?
Bark dust is a noun.

Words near bark dust in the dictionary

  1. bark beetles
  2. bark bread
  3. bark breads
  4. bark collar
  5. bark collars
  6. bark dust
  7. bark lice
  8. bark louse
  9. bark mill
  10. bark mills
  11. bark mitzvah

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bark dust (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “bark dust.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bark_dust. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.