Manure

How to spell manure

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce manure

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does manure mean?

1. nounAnimal dung and other organic matter spread on land to fertilise it.
2. verbTo enrich land by applying dung or other fertilising matter.

Manure in a sentence

• noun

  The gardener spread well-rotted manure across the vegetable beds.

• verb

  The farmer planned to manure the field before the spring planting.

• noun

  A strong smell of manure drifted over from the neighbouring farm.

• verb

  They manure the orchard every autumn to keep the trees healthy.

Where does manure come from?

Language of origin: French

This word started life with no whiff of the farmyard about it. It came into English in the 1400s from the Old French manouvrer, meaning 'to work with the hands' or 'to till the soil', which itself traces back to the Latin phrase manu operari, built from manus 'hand' and operari 'to work'. At first 'manure' was a verb meaning to cultivate or hold land by manual labour, and only later did people narrow it to mean the spreading of dung to enrich the soil; eventually the noun for that dung took over entirely. The very same Old French root gives us 'manoeuvre' and 'manual', all sharing the idea of doing something by hand. Knowing that hidden 'hand' is helpful for the spelling: the word opens with man, not 'men' or 'mun', and finishes with the quiet -ure ending that English took straight from French.

How the word is built

• man- (from Latin manus: hand)
• -ure (noun suffix denoting the result of an action)