Dirt vs Debris - What's the difference?

dirt | debris |

As nouns the difference between dirt and debris

is that dirt is soil or earth while debris is rubble, wreckage, scattered remains of something destroyed.

As a verb dirt

is to make foul or filthy; soil; befoul; dirty.

As an acronym DIRT

is Deposit Interest Retention Tax

dirt

English

Alternative forms

Noun

A stain or spot (on clothes etc); any foreign substance that worsens appearance

Previously unknown facts, or the invented "facts", about a person; gossip

The reporter uncovered the dirt on the businessman by going undercover.

Meanness; sordidness.

honours thrown away upon dirt and infamy

In placer mining, earth, gravel, etc., before washing.

Derived terms

* dirt bike * dirt nap * dirty * do someone dirt

Verb

(rare) To make foul or filthy; soil; befoul; dirty

debris

English

Alternative forms

Noun

Rubble, wreckage, scattered remains of something destroyed.

* {{quote-news, year=2012, date=December 21, author=David M. Halbfinger, Charles V. Bagli and Sarah Maslin Nir, title=On Ravaged Coastline, It’s Rebuild Deliberately vs. Rebuild Now, work=New York Times citation

, passage=His neighbors were still ripping out debris . But Mr. Ryan, a retired bricklayer who built his house by hand 30 years ago only to lose most of it to Hurricane Sandy, was already hard at work rebuilding. }}

Litter and discarded refuse.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Welcome to the plastisphere , passage=[The researchers] noticed many of their pieces of [plastic marine] debris sported surface pits around two microns across. Such pits are about the size of a bacterial cell. Closer examination showed that some of these pits did, indeed, contain bacteria, […].}}

The ruins of a broken-down structure

(geology) Large rock fragments left by a melting glacier etc.

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