🗑️ A dirty state 💩 A pile of dung

dunghill

1 9.8

A place or situation people think is dirty and shameful

noun
/ˈdʌŋˌhɪl/

Informal

: situation degradante

To him, the city had turned into a dunghill, filled with pollution and neglect.

Examples

And the king, Nebuchadnezzar, answered and said to the Chaldeans, "I recall not my dream; if you will not make known to me my dream and its interpretation, you shall be cut in pieces, and of your tents shall be made a dunghill."

Fiction book (1991)
Evil is a dunghill, Mr. Angel.

Angel Heart (1987)
Go back to the dunghill of your failed philosophy and moronic infighting.

Blog text (34)
On shipboard, he worried over the circumstances of some "dunghill fowls" the other passengers had brought on board "for eating." (n80)

Academic text (2007)
He felt like he was living on a dunghill after losing his job and facing constant criticism.
Her once bright career had dwindled to a dunghill of missed opportunities and poor choices.

Synonyms

scumminess

vsdunghill

Offensive

1 8.6

A state of being dirty or bad in a moral way, for example a filthy place

is a judged social state seen as dirty and contemptible

complete shitheap

vsdunghill

Offensive

1 9.9

Something in very bad condition and nearly falling apart

is about being judged dirty, degraded, or contemptible rather than structural decay

soilage

vsdunghill

Archaic

9.1

Dirt or mess that makes something dirty

is a judged degraded state including contempt rather than only physical dirt

cesspit of trash

vsdunghill

Informal

8.6

A place that is very dirty and full of trash and bad smells

is an abstract judged condition rather than a physical dirty place

Antonyms

dignity

358 3.2

Calm, respectful behaviour that shows self-respect in hard times

respectability

18 4.6

Being seen by other people as proper and having a good name

Surface Forms

dunghill singular

dunghills plural

Morphology

dunghill = dung + hill (semi-transparent) = dung + hill

This sense is a figurative extension of the literal compound to describe a degraded or contemptible state; the components suggest the metaphor but the meaning is idiomatic.

Etymology

Dunghill comes from the words dung 'manure' and hill 'small mound', so it first meant a dirty heap. By that strong image, people began to call a place or situation that is very dirty, low, or shameful a 'dunghill', which is why it now has that figurative meaning.