Definition

1. Noun:
   • A heap of dung or refuse: A pile of animal excrement or other waste material, often found on a farm or in a rural setting.
   • A foul or degraded condition: A state of extreme filth, squalor, or moral degradation.

Usage Examples

• Noun (Heap of waste):
  • The farmer piled the manure into a large dunghill behind the barn.
  • Flies buzzed around the foul-smelling dunghill.
• Noun (Degraded condition):
  • The slum was a moral dunghill of crime and despair. (This usage is literary or figurative.)

Advanced Usage

• "as proud as a cock on his dunghill": An idiom describing someone who is arrogant or boastful in a limited, insignificant, or familiar environment where they feel superior.
  • The local bully swaggered around the village, as proud as a cock on his dunghill.

Variants and Related Words

• Dung (n): The excrement of animals; manure.
  • The fields were fertilized with cow dung.
• Midden (n): A dunghill or refuse heap; also used in archaeology for a domestic waste site.
  • Archaeologists studied the ancient midden to learn about the diet of the settlement.

Synonyms

• Manure pile: A heap of dung used for fertilizing land.
• Muckheap: A pile of manure or filth.
• Tip / Rubbish heap: A pile of refuse or garbage (more general, not specifically dung).

Related Phrases

• To be/reek of the dunghill: To have the offensive smell or characteristics of a dunghill; to be vulgar or of low origin (archaic/figurative).
  • His coarse manners reeked of the dunghill, offending the genteel company.

Related Idioms

• As proud as a cock on his dunghill: (See Advanced Usage above).

Noun

1. a heap of dung or refuse
2. a foul or degraded condition