Word.ws English Dictionary

dig up dirt

dig up dirt verb: to examine in order to find negative information for public opinion, usually with the purpose of embarrassing or discrediting a person.

Verb

dig up dirt (third-person singular simple present digs up dirt, present participle digging up dirt, simple past and past participle dug up dirt)

  1. (idiomatic, usually, with-on) To examine in order to find negative information for public opinion, usually with the purpose of embarrassing or discrediting a person.
    • The freelance investigative reporter made a career of digging up dirt on celebrities for tabloids.

Forms of dig up dirt

third-person singular presentdigs up dirt
present participledigging up dirt
past participledug up dirt
pastdug up dirt

Questions about dig up dirt

What does dig up dirt mean?
Dig up dirt means to examine in order to find negative information for public opinion, usually with the purpose of embarrassing or discrediting a person.
What part of speech is dig up dirt?
Dig up dirt is a verb.
What is the past tense of dig up dirt?
The past tense of dig up dirt is dug up dirt.

Words near dig up dirt in the dictionary

  1. dig out
  2. dig out of a hole
  3. dig over
  4. dig round
  5. dig up
  6. dig up dirt
  7. dig yourself
  8. digable
  9. digacetinin
  10. digadolinium
  11. Digahungan

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dig up dirt (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-dig up dirt.ogg.

Cite this entry: “dig up dirt.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dig_up_dirt. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.