What's the difference between dirt and soil?

Dirt


Definition:

  • (n.) Any foul of filthy substance, as excrement, mud, dust, etc.; whatever, adhering to anything, renders it foul or unclean; earth; as, a wagonload of dirt.
  • (n.) Meanness; sordidness.
  • (n.) In placer mining, earth, gravel, etc., before washing.
  • (v. t.) To make foul of filthy; to dirty.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) But this morning's right-of-centre national papers were determined to rub his nose in the dirt.
  • (2) He got so bad that I - and this is true - turned off the television and went outside to watch my son add to his dirt collection.
  • (3) But Gates’s decision to “bump off from art” and live “in the sphere of dirt, the dirty, the stuff that we think is in the ground” was revelatory, leading to invitations to Davos and a TED Talk, where he talked about how he revived a neighborhood with imagination and hard graft .
  • (4) Earlier this year, a century-old wasteland of limestone and red dirt in south-west Nigeria was transformed into the biggest cement plant in Africa.
  • (5) Along with Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly, he brought the music of the dirt farms, the sweat shops and the lonesome highways into America's – and later the world's – living room.
  • (6) The land is held by the Navajo people, and visitors must pay an access fee to drive through the tribal park on a 17-mile dirt loop, which is suitable for all cars when dry but impassable after a storm ( usually in late summer).
  • (7) It’s a bit of a trek to get there: a few kilometres drive along a dirt road and then a short walk, with arrows painted on stones.
  • (8) Apparently, optimal disinfection of contaminated knives is extremely difficult to attain without the use of mechanical forces such as a high pressure water jet to remove the dirt.
  • (9) This state of high resistance to infection can be reduced by several factors which include circulatory embarrassment, tissue injury, dead space, and the presence of foreign bodies (dirt, sutures, drains, etc.).
  • (10) Among the prime concerns, especially for facial skin, is the type of dirt, debris, or make-up to be removed.
  • (11) We’re out there one night ’til 3am shoveling dirt on the fire.
  • (12) The land that when you shed your shoes and walk, you feel every grain of dirt and every blade of grass and for a moment, everything is right in the world and you are in your rightful place in it.
  • (13) Because the all-hallowed children must learn from their elders to exercise, every adult entering Hampstead Heath must hit the dirt for a set of 25 press-ups.
  • (14) Elevated concentrations of the soil fungi were significantly (P = 0.05) associated with the dirt floor, crawl-space type of basement.
  • (15) With its dirt pavements and crumbling wooden homes, the city of Kirov is a city stuck in time.
  • (16) Another former colleague in the psychological operations unit, Fred Allen Lucas, said that Page called him a "race traitor" for dating Latina women and took to calling other races "dirt people".
  • (17) Observations for estrus were conducted three times daily in a dirt paddock containing a testosterone-treated cow.
  • (18) On the outskirts of Juba, along a dirt road just past the UN camp, opposition forces clad in new uniforms and boots lined up for a military parade.
  • (19) Lead antiknock additives are therefore not a significant contributor to the lead content of dirt around houses where children usually play.
  • (20) As the result of smear slide evaluation, it was concluded that proper sputum specimens have been smeared but smears were generally too thin and contaminated with too many dirt .

Soil


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To feed, as cattle or horses, in the barn or an inclosure, 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; as, to soil a horse.
  • (n.) The upper stratum of the earth; the mold, or that compound substance which furnishes nutriment to plants, or which is particularly adapted to support and nourish them.
  • (n.) Land; country.
  • (n.) Dung; faeces; compost; manure; as, night soil.
  • (v. t.) To enrich with soil or muck; to manure.
  • (n.) 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.
  • (n.) To make dirty or unclean on the surface; to foul; to dirty; to defile; as, to soil a garment with dust.
  • (n.) To stain or mar, as with infamy or disgrace; to tarnish; to sully.
  • (v. i.) To become soiled; as, light colors soil sooner than dark ones.
  • (n.) That which soils or pollutes; a soiled place; spot; stain.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The disappearance of the herbicide, Avadex (40% diallate), from five agricultural soils (differing in either pH, carbon content, or nitrogen content), incubated under sterile and non-sterile conditions, was followed for a period of 20 weeks.
  • (2) The remaining 5 soil samples, obtained from sites that were not in close proximity to lakes, were also negative except for one that contained type B.
  • (3) One ejaculation followed by daily contact with soiled bedding taken from a male's cage did not increase pregnancy rates.
  • (4) Fourteen soil bacteriophages active against Rhizobium trifolii W19 have been studied which fall into four structural groups.
  • (5) Recoveries of these 3 herbicides added to soil, wheat, and barley samples at 0.05, 0.1, 0.5, and 1.0 ppm levels were between 65 and 93%.
  • (6) The hypothesis was tested that plaque, as a complex soil comprising microorganisms, cell debris, salivary deposits and other ill-defined organic and inorganic components, would be susceptible to removal by a rinse with high detersive action.
  • (7) While undoubtedly a good understanding of soil microbiology in terms of pedology exists, little is presently known about unsaturated subsoils, and aquifers.
  • (8) The behavior and effects of atmospheric emissions in soils and plants are discussed.
  • (9) The first stop in this arid place of poor farms and orchards clinging to the dry soil is Rafah, cut off by the border from its Palestinian counterpart.
  • (10) Although selenium deficiency in livestock is consequently now rare in Oregon, selenium-deficient soils and attendant selenium deficiency conditions have been reported near the Kesterson Wildlife Refuge in the Northern part of the San Joaquin Valley, California, where, paradoxically, selenium toxicity in wildfowl, nesting near evaporation ponds, occurred and attracted wide attention.
  • (11) It is now recognized that dwarfism in males is frequent around the Mediterranean, where wheat is the staple of life and has been grown for 4,000 years on the same soil, thereby resulting in the depletion of zinc.
  • (12) The influence of salt mixtures consisting of Ca(H2PO4)2, trace elements, CaSO4, CaCO3, Na2CO3, NaCl and K2SO4 in different combinations on the nitrifying power, evolution of carbon dioxide and the total number of bacteria was studied in arid soils (sandy and alluvial) and semi-humid ones (chernozem and rendzina).
  • (13) High concentrations of mercury, cadmium, and lead have also been observed in urban soils.
  • (14) Two long-term tillage studies on fine-textured, clay loam soils were sampled in July and November 1977 following 2 years of limited rainfall.
  • (15) Adult Persian lime trees grafted on Citrus macrophylla and C. volkameriana were used, planted on a groundwater-affected red ferrilytic soil in the La Habana Province.
  • (16) Recent reports incriminating Acanthamoeba, a small free-living amoeba, wide-spread in environmental soils and waters, in acanthamoebic keratitis cases wearing soft contact lenses, drew attention to cleaning solutions for contact lenses.
  • (17) An enzyme (nitrilase) that converts the herbicide bromoxynil (3,5-dibromo-4-hydroxybenzonitrile) to its metabolite 3,5-dibromo-4-hydroxybenzoic acid was shown to be plasmid encoded in the natural soil isolate Klebsiella ozaenae.
  • (18) Forty soil samples from different desert localities in Kuwait were surveyed for keratinophilic and geophilic dermatophytic fungi.
  • (19) The well drained soils of the Suiá--Missu forest are very uniform, deep latosols (oxisols) of very dystrophic nature with pH (in water) between 4.0 and 5.0 (see table 2, p. 203).
  • (20) To reduce the risks posed by the hazard, the report recommends that a management plan be created to determine the level of soil contamination and for managing excavated soil, and to decommission disused septic tanks to prevent the spread of contamination.