ordure

Noun

ordure (countable and uncountable, plural ordures)

1. Dung, excrement.
   • But there has none employed my Thoughts of late ſo much, as a very nice inquiſition, or inſpection, into the frequent differences we meet with Human Ordure. The World may ſay, perhaps, I had very little to do, and that ſo ſolemn and ſerious a Preface, ill became ſo foul a Subject; but let what will...1733, “Dr. S——t” [pseudonym; formerly attributed to Jonathan Swift], Human Ordure, Botanically Considered. […], printed at Dublin, and reprinted at London: For F. Coggan […], →OCLC, page 6
   • If a Man throws upon a Woman's body, from the Navel upwards to beneath the Neck, any Spue, or Urine, or Ordure, or Semen, the Magiſtrate ſhall fine him One Hundred and Twenty Puns of Cowries.1776, “Chap. XVI. Of Assault.”, in Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, transl., A Code of Gentoo Laws, or, Ordinations of the Pundits, […], London: [s.n.], →OCLC, section I (Of Assaults, and of Preparation to...

   Synonyms:

   boo-boo, boom-boom, BM, bowel movement, caca, cack, chocolate, chocolate hot dog, crap, crud

2. (broadly) Dirt, filth.
   • For, that the ordure, which continually gathers on the skin, would ſoon ſtop the pores of it, if the ſweat were not furniſht with ſome efficacious diſſolvent to open and pierce them.1669 August 25, “[An Accompt of Some Books.] III. Ottonis Tachenii Hippocrates Chymicus. Venetiis in 12º.”, in Philosophical Transactions: Giving Some Accompt of the Present Undertakings, Studies and...
   • The Ears are ſometimes troubled with Ulcers; and an Ulcer often happens by the Fall of a malignant Humour; or elſe it is occaſioned by a Wound, ſome Hurt, or ſome Ordure that is corrupted in the Ear.1725, [Noël] Chomel, “EAR”, in R[ichard] Bradley, editor, Dictionaire Oeconomique: Or, The Family Dictionary. […], volume I (A–H), London: […] D[aniel] Midwinter, […], →OCLC, column 2
3. (broadly) Something regarded as contaminating or perverting the morals; obscene material.
   • As my Papers are intended for ſhort Eſſays of Morality,—I ſhall leave to the Authors of Common-Senſe, the full Poſſeſſion of their Puns and Ordures, both now and evermore; [...]1738 February, [Lady Mary Wortley Montagu], “Nonsense of Common-sense. No. 7. Of Indecent Writers.”, in Sylvanus Urban [pseudonym; Edward Cave], editor, The Gentleman’s Magazine: And Historical...
   • [James] Douglas – who had recently railed against Aldous Huxley’s Antic Hay for its ‘ordure and blasphemy’, summed the book [Aleister Crowley’s Diary of a Drug Fiend (1922)] up as ‘describing the orgies of vice practised by a group of moral degenerates who stimulate their degraded lusts by doses of...2012, Kevin Jackson, “November”, in Constellation of Genius: 1922: Modernism Year One, London: Hutchinson, →ISBN; 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013, →ISBN, page 320