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Soil vs Mess - What's the difference?

soil | mess |

In transitive terms the difference between soil and mess

is that soil is to make dirty while mess is to throw into confusion.

In intransitive terms the difference between soil and mess

is that soil is to become dirty or soiled while mess is to interfere.

soil

English

(wikipedia soil)

Etymology 1

From (etyl) (m), (m), . See also (l), (l).

Noun

  • (uncountable) A mixture of sand and organic material, used to support plant growth.
  • (uncountable) The unconsolidated mineral or organic material on the immediate surface of the earth that serves as a natural medium for the growth of land plants.
  • (uncountable) The unconsolidated mineral or organic matter on the surface of the earth that has been subjected to and shows effects of genetic and environmental factors of: climate (including water and temperature effects), and macro- and microorganisms, conditioned by relief, acting on parent material over a period of time. A product-soil differs from the material from which it is derived in many physical, chemical, biological, and morphological properties and characteristics.
  • Country or territory.
  • The refugees returned to their native soil .
  • That which soils or pollutes; a stain.
  • * Dryden
  • A lady's honour will not bear a soil .
  • A marshy or miry place to which a hunted boar resorts for refuge; hence, a wet place, stream, or tract of water, sought for by other game, as deer.
  • * Marston
  • As deer, being stuck, fly through many soils , / Yet still the shaft sticks fast.
  • Dung; compost; manure.
  • night soil
  • * Mortimer
  • Improve land by dung and other sort of soils .
    Synonyms
    * dirt (US) , earth
    Derived terms
    * home soil * native soil * soilless * soil pipe * topsoil
    See also
    *

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) (m), (m), .

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To make dirty.
  • * Milton
  • Our wonted ornaments now soiled and stained.
  • To become dirty or soiled.
  • Light colours soil sooner than dark ones.
  • (figurative) To stain or mar, as with infamy or disgrace; to tarnish; to sully.
  • (Shakespeare)
  • (reflexive) To dirty one's clothing by accidentally defecating while clothed.
  • To make invalid, to ruin.
  • To enrich with soil or muck; to manure.
  • * South
  • Men soil their ground, not that they love the dirt, but that they expect a crop.
    Synonyms
    * (to make dirty) smirch, besmirch, dirty
    Derived terms
    * soil oneself

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (uncountable, euphemistic) Faeces or urine etc. when found on clothes.
  • (countable, medicine) A bag containing soiled items.
  • Synonyms
    * dirt

    Etymology 3

    From (etyl) (m), from (etyl) (m), .

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A wet or marshy place in which a boar or other such game seeks refuge when hunted.
  • Etymology 4

    (etyl) saoler, .

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To feed, as cattle or horses, in the barn or an enclosure, with fresh grass or green food cut for them, instead of sending them out to pasture; hence (such food having the effect of purging them), to purge by feeding on green food.
  • to soil a horse
    (Webster 1913)

    Anagrams

    * (l), (l), (l) ----

    mess

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) (m), partly from (etyl) . More at (m); see also (m).

    Noun

    (es)
  • (obsolete) Mass; church service.
  • A quantity of food set on a table at one time; provision of food for a person or party for one meal; also, the food given to an animal at one time.
  • A mess of pottage.
  • * Milton
  • At their savoury dinner set / Of herbs and other country messes .
  • A number of persons who eat together, and for whom food is prepared in common; especially, persons in the military or naval service who eat at the same table.
  • the wardroom mess
  • * 1610 , , IV. iv. 11:
  • But that our feasts / In every mess have folly, and the feeders / Digest it with accustom,
  • A set of four (from the old practice of dividing companies into sets of four at dinner).
  • (Latimer)
  • (US) The milk given by a cow at one milking.
  • Derived terms
    * Eton mess * lose the number of one's mess * mess hall * mess up * Mills Mess

    Verb

  • (label) To take meals with a mess.
  • (label) To belong to a mess.
  • (label) To eat (with others).
  • (label) To supply with a mess.
  • Etymology 2

    Perhaps a corruption of (etyl) , compare (muss), or derived from Etymology 1 "mixed foods, as for animals".

    Noun

    (-)
  • A disagreeable mixture or confusion of things; hence, a situation resulting from blundering or from misunderstanding; a disorder.
  • (label) A large quantity or number.
  • (label) Excrement.
  • Synonyms
    * see also

    Verb

    (es)
  • (label) To make a mess of.
  • (label) To throw into confusion.
  • (label) To interfere.
  • Derived terms
    (terms derived from "mess") * messy * mess around * mess up * mess with

    References

    *

    Anagrams

    * ----