Definitions

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

  • adjective UK, slang unattractive or repulsive
  • adjective UK, slang unclean or dirty

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the Scots word mingin

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Examples

  • (Potteries usage)Incidentally, in the lead-in to the Elmes quote, the word minging is used; for those who, like myself, were wondering how it's pronounced, it rhymes with singing and is Scots in origin, meaning (according to the OED) That smells bad, stinking; (more generally) unpleasant, foul.

    languagehat.com: WORD 4 WORD. 2005

  • Haha, you're proper loving the word minging at the moment aren't you?

    Entertainment - Female First 2009

  • Except for the little things like the 'minging' toilets that take away the pleasure of one of the most exciting activities of the day i.e taking a dump with a good book The mood has to be right!

    Archive 2005-03-01 Minzo 2005

  • Except for the little things like the 'minging' toilets that take away the pleasure of one of the most exciting activities of the day i.e taking a dump with a good book The mood has to be right!

    The Wells Hall chronicles: the beginning Minzo 2005

  • Leo was really "minging," as he told us about a goddamn jillion times, and was walking slow as hell as we wandered down the street waiting for a cab to show up.

    TravelPod.com TravelStream™ — Recent Entries at TravelPod.com 2010

  • Earlier on in the week, she told a paper that although she is looking forward to having kids, she hopes they're not "minging".

    WalesOnline - Home 2010

  • My dad's Jamaican so he made a lot of Jamaican food, and my mum did lots of traditional shepherd's pies and homemade quiches, but I was brought up on some really minging things as well – my mum gave me liquidised tripe when I was a baby.

    Jessica Ennis: 'I'm so hungry by the end of a heptathlon that I just want to indulge' 2012

  • How is that any different from the journalists who wrote about it tapping a stranger on the shoulder at a party in order to crow to fellow guests that she has "minging hooves"?

    Actually, you won't find female empowerment halfway up a pole 2010

  • The beach-side railway: lovely view from the trains, bit minging looking at them.

    Let's move to Teignmouth, Devon Tom Dyckhoff 2010

  • Where else could the frankly minging Georgia Gould be described as a pretty little princess to rival Miley Cyrus?

    Archive 2009-04-01 juliette 2009

Comments

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  • Minging things make you say "ew!", because they're dirty, ugly, or just plain repulsive! This runs the gamut from food to hairstyles on your neighbors' heads to that pair of old trousers you found in the attic, with the giant Yosemite Sam patch on the right thigh.

    It is, primarily, used in Britain.

    Like many -ing words, the final g is often "silent". An approximate pronunciation would be /'m?? ?n/ - that's the stress on the first syllable there.

    An example (Twitter's better for this, though):

    That cardigan is minging! First, who would glue all those rhinestones onto the zipper? And second, why is it puce?

    July 7, 2009