Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Exceedingly filthy from long neglect.
  • adjective Requiring heroic efforts of cleaning or correction.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Of or pertaining to Augeas or Augeias, one of the Argonauts, and afterward king of Elis, or resembling his stables; hence, very filthy.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective (Class. Myth.) Of or pertaining to Augeus, king of Elis, whose stable contained 3000 oxen, and had not been cleaned for 30 years. Hercules cleansed it in a single day.
  • adjective Hence: Exceedingly filthy or corrupt.
  • adjective an accumulation of corruption or filth almost beyond the power of man to remedy.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of Augeas.
  • adjective Hence, very filthy.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective extremely filthy from long neglect

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[After Augeas, legendary Greek king who did not clean his stable for thirty years.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

A reference to Augeas, a figure in Greek mythology whose stables were never cleaned until Hercules was given the task of cleaning them.

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