Meaning & use
muck
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Meanings
noununcountableinformal
Wet, sticky dirt or mud, or any unpleasant mess that clings to things.
Grammar: No plural and no article for the substance: boots covered in muck, not a muck.
Patterns
- covered in muck
- scrape muck off something
The children came in from the field with their boots caked in muck.
He scraped the muck off the tractor wheels with a stick.
After the flood, a layer of muck coated the whole ground floor.
noununcountable
Animal manure, especially when spread on land as fertilizer.
Grammar: Often appears in farming contexts: spread muck on the field.
Patterns
- muck spreader
- spread muck
The farmer spent the morning spreading muck on the north field.
A heap of muck steamed behind the cowshed in the cold air.
verbtransitiveinformalBritish
To make something dirty, or to clear animal waste from a stable, often used in the phrases muck up and muck out.
Grammar: Usually appears with a particle: muck out a stable, muck up a plan.
Patterns
- muck out something
- muck up something
She gets up at six to muck out the horses' stalls.
Don't muck up my clean floor with those shoes.
I really mucked up the interview by arriving late.
Word forms
| third person singular | mucks |
|---|---|
| past tense | mucked |
| past participle | mucked |
| -ing form | mucking |
Common combinations
- muck about
- Stop mucking about and finish your homework.
- muck out a stable
- Every Saturday I help muck out the stable.
- muck up
- I mucked up the recipe by adding salt twice.
- thick muck
- The path was a stretch of thick muck after the rain.
- muck spreader
- The muck spreader rumbled slowly across the field.
Synonyms and how they differ
- mud
- Mud is plain wet earth and sounds neutral, while muck suggests something dirtier, thicker or more unpleasant.
- grime
- Grime is a layer of greasy dirt built up over time on surfaces, whereas muck is usually wetter and more recently picked up.
- manure
- Manure is the standard term for animal waste used as fertilizer, while muck is more casual and also covers plain mud.
- filth
- Filth is a stronger word suggesting something disgusting, while muck can simply be ordinary farm dirt.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: muck or mock?
muck vs mock
Mock means to make fun of someone or to be imitation, and it has a different vowel sound from muck.
Practice
Which meaning does 'muck' have in 'She spent the morning mucking out the stables'?
Choose one answer.
To muck out a stable is to clear away manure and dirty bedding. Feeding is a different job and has nothing to do with the verb muck.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “muck”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.