Meaning & use
dirty mind
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Meanings
nouncountableinformal
A tendency to see sexual meanings in things that are not sexual at all.
Grammar: Countable: say a dirty mind or dirty minds, and use have or have got before it.
Patterns
- have a dirty mind
- have got a dirty mind
- with a dirty mind
She has a dirty mind, so she laughed at a joke that was really about gardening.
He saw a dirty mind behind my innocent remark about bananas, but I was only talking about fruit.
Don't tell her that story — she has a dirty mind and she will read something into it.
nouncountableinformaldisapproving
A person who habitually thinks about sex and turns ordinary talk in that direction.
Grammar: Used of a person: you can call someone a dirty mind, especially with you or he.
Patterns
- you dirty mind
- a dirty mind like someone
You dirty mind — I said I was going to bed, not to bed with anyone.
Her brother is a dirty mind who can twist any sentence into a rude joke.
The film plays with the idea that the audience is a dirty mind, guessing at things the characters never say.
Word forms
| plural | dirty minds |
|---|
Common combinations
- have a dirty mind
- My uncle has a dirty mind and laughs at things nobody else finds funny.
- have got a dirty mind
- She has got a dirty mind, so be careful what you say around her.
- a dirty mind at work
- It was only a picture of a cucumber, but his dirty mind was at work again.
- you dirty mind
- You dirty mind! I meant we were sharing a taxi, nothing more.
- with a dirty mind
- He is a nice man with a dirty mind and a taste for rude songs.
- a dirty mind like that
- I have never met anyone with a dirty mind like that.
Synonyms and how they differ
- filthy mind
- Stronger and ruder than dirty mind; it suggests thoughts that are more shocking, so use it only with close friends.
- smutty sense of humor
- Describes the jokes a person enjoys rather than the way they think, so it fits better when you are talking about what someone finds funny.
- dirty joke
- This is the joke itself, not the person's way of thinking; a dirty mind is what makes someone enjoy a dirty joke.
Opposites
Word family
- dirty-minded adjective
- Describing someone who often thinks about sex; a slightly more formal way to say the same thing.
- dirty adjective
- The base adjective, meaning not clean, or, informally, connected with sex.
- mind noun
- The part of a person that thinks and remembers; the noun used in this phrase.
Commonly confused: dirty mind or dirty look? dirty mind or dirty word?
dirty mind vs dirty look
A dirty look is an angry or disapproving expression on someone's face, not a way of thinking. If you say 'he gave me a dirty mind', it sounds like a joke, because minds are not given to other people.
dirty mind vs dirty word
A dirty word is a rude or offensive word, or, figuratively, a subject people avoid mentioning. It is about language, while a dirty mind is about a person's imagination.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'dirty mind' correctly?
Choose one answer.
'Dirty mind' is a countable noun, so it needs a determiner before it: 'a dirty mind'. Option 1 leaves out the article, option 2 wrongly uses 'the', which suggests there is only one in the world, and option 3 uses 'is', but a person is not a mind; you have a dirty mind.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “dirty mind”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.