Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun plural Waste matter, such as sweat, urine, or feces, discharged from the body.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Any matter eliminated as useless from the living body; specifically, such substances as have really entered into the tissues of the body and are the product of its metabolism, as urine or sweat. In this restricted sense the word would not include the feces.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun plural Matters to be excreted.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Human bodily
waste which isexcreted from the body.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun waste matter (as urine or sweat but especially feces) discharged from the body
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word excreta.
Examples
-
Every drop of that human excreta is a valuable asset and provides the means of fertilizing their farms and gardens, and is treasured up and used with a care unthought of in our own country, and is dealt out to the soil which is thereby fertilized to an extent that no soil in any other country is fertilized.
Glimpses of the East 1998
-
Of the two and a half million people who live there every drop of liquid or other human excreta is taken out in buckets and baskets slung on bamboo poles and borne on the shoulders of the patient, willing, human carrier, all destined for the land as a precious and priceless offering.
Glimpses of the East 1998
-
Probably the best known contrivance for deodorizing the excreta is the dry earth system as applied in the earth closet, in which advantage is taken of the deodorizing properties of earth.
Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 Various
-
Study required her and her assistant to collect, weigh and analyze the "excreta" from selected ducks every hour on the hour for 48 hours straight.
grouse Diary Entry grouse 2001
-
You collect the scat, wash away all the biodegradable "excreta", and analyze the bones and hairs that are left.
grouse Diary Entry grouse 2001
-
The principle of all types of pit latrine is that wastes such as excreta, anal cleaning materials, sullage and refuse are deposited in a hole in the ground.
Chapter 4 1992
-
Excuuuuse me, friends, but using "excreta" is not the homeopathic principle of similars!
Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium - Recent changes [en] 2009
-
Excuuuuse me, friends, but using "excreta" is not the homeopathic principle of similars!
Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium - Recent changes [en] 2009
-
Excuuuuse me, friends, but using "excreta" is not the homeopathic principle of similars!
Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium - Recent changes [en] 2009
-
Excuuuuse me, friends, but using "excreta" is not the homeopathic principle of similars!
Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium - Recent changes [en] 2009
bilby commented on the word excreta
"Stephen and Jessica Whyte, their three young children and another family were at the hotel to watch the NRL grand final on October 5. After a series of complaints, they were given a free bowl of gelato.
Mrs Whyte says she became violently ill on putting a spoonful to her lips. The family sent a sample to the National Measurements Institute, which found that it had 'properties similar to human excreta'.
'The real issue is that we were fed, as a family, shit, at someone's pub,' Mr Whyte told 2UE yesterday."
- Dylan Welch, ''Faeces in gelato': chef offers to take DNA test', smh.com.au, 28 Oct 2008.
October 28, 2008