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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

* (obsolete)

Noun

(en-noun)
  • soil or earth
  • 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.
  • * Melmoth
    • 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

    (en 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.

    • Anagrams

    *