Definition of "ordure"

But there has none employed my Thoughts of late ſo much, as a very nice inquiſition, or inſpection, into the frequent differences we meet with Human Ordure. The World may ſay, perhaps, I had very little to do, and that ſo ſolemn and ſerious a Preface, ill became ſo foul a Subject; but let what will be ſaid, I can't help communicating my Sentiments, but will endeavour to wrap 'em up in as cleanly a manner, as the dirtineſs of the Theme will admit.

1733, “Dr. S——t” [pseudonym; formerly attributed to Jonathan Swift], Human Ordure, Botanically Considered. […], printed at Dublin, and reprinted at London: For F. Coggan […], page 6

If a Man throws upon a Woman's body, from the Navel upwards to beneath the Neck, any Spue, or Urine, or Ordure, or Semen, the Magiſtrate ſhall fine him One Hundred and Twenty Puns of Cowries.

1776, “Chap. XVI. Of Assault.”, in Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, transl., A Code of Gentoo Laws, or, Ordinations of the Pundits, […], London: [s.n.], section I (Of Assaults, and of Preparation to Assault), page 223

It seems at first sight a strange thing that Paris, with its apparently pure air, should be by no means so healthy a place to live in as London. [...] Another cause, not so sensible to the eye as to another organ, we have long believed to be, the universal accumulation of ordures in pestiferous cess-pools under or near almost every house. [...] The removal of these ordures is periodical, and must take place in the night. [...] From the cleaned-out dwellings the ordures are taken to the greatest laystall in the world, the Boyauteries of Montfaucon, famous for its filth, its carrion, and countless myriads of rats. Thence they are bought up by growers as manure for the land; [...]

1843, “Public and Domestic Economy in France. [...] No. I.”, in The Magazine of Domestic Economy, and Family Review, volume I (New Series), London: Published by W[illiam] S[omerville] Orr & Co., […], pages 289–290

Also, they say that Margaret Samon, Nicholas Alastre, Thomas de Stanley, John Etwall, Richard Etwall, and William, son of Hugh Spicer, block up the common cavern of the aforesaid town on the northern side with ordure, weeds, and cinders, to the serious damage of the whole town aforesaid, etc.

1882, “CLX.—Roll of the Presentments of the Mikletorn Jury. 1396, April 5. Presentments of the Great Tourn Taken before John de Plumptre, Mayor of the Town of Nottingham, on the Day and Year within-written.”, in W. Henry Stevenson, James Raine, editors, Records of the Borough of Nottingham: Being a Series of Extracts from the Archives of the Corporation of Nottingham […], volumes I (King Henry II. to King Richard II., 1155–1399), London: Bernard Quaritch, […]; Nottingham, Nottinghamshire: Thomas Forman & Sons, page 321

Only Madame herself seeing Jacob out had about her that leer, that lewdness, that quake of the surface (visible in the eyes chiefly), which threatens to spill the whole bag of ordure, with difficulty held together, over the pavement. In short, something was wrong.

1922 October 26, Virginia Woolf, chapter IX, in Jacob’s Room, Richmond, London: […] Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press; republished London: The Hogarth Press, 1960, pages 103–104

The invention consists in a method of dehydrating animal ordure wherein the ordure is caused to move along a path and subjected to the simultaneous action of a hot air flow, and of ultrasonic and/or microwave radiation during such movement.

1974 March 25, Victor Simon, Dehydration of Manure, US Patent 3,997,388 (PDF version), page 3, column 1

David Jones had seen death on a vast and public scale but never before domestically and at close quarters. This domestic death revolted him. [...] The bowels and bladder collapsed, sheets and mattress had to be burnt at the bottom of the back garden. The body, having vulgarly shed its ordures, now turned into an ordure itself.

1989, Anthony Burgess, “Un”, in Any Old Iron, London: Hutchinson; republished New York, N.Y.: Washington Square Press, Pocket Books, 1990, page 27

For, that the ordure, which continually gathers on the skin, would ſoon ſtop the pores of it, if the ſweat were not furniſht with ſome efficacious diſſolvent to open and pierce them.

1669 August 26, “[An Accompt of Some Books.] III. Ottonis Tachenii Hippocrates Chymicus. Venetiis in 12º.”, in Philosophical Transactions: Giving Some Accompt of the Present Undertakings, Studies and Labours of the Ingenious in Many Considerable Parts of the World, volume IV, number 50, London: Printed by T. N. for John Martyn […] , printer to the Royal Society, published 1670, pages 1019–1020

The Ears are ſometimes troubled with Ulcers; and an Ulcer often happens by the Fall of a malignant Humour; or elſe it is occaſioned by a Wound, ſome Hurt, or ſome Ordure that is corrupted in the Ear.

1725, [Noël] Chomel, “EAR”, in R[ichard] Bradley, editor, Dictionaire Oeconomique: Or, The Family Dictionary. […], volume I (A–H), London: […] D[aniel] Midwinter, […], column 2

As my Papers are intended for ſhort Eſſays of Morality,—I ſhall leave to the Authors of Common-Senſe, the full Poſſeſſion of their Puns and Ordures, both now and evermore; [...]

1738 February, [Lady Mary Wortley Montagu], “Nonsense of Common-sense. No. 7. Of Indecent Writers.”, in Sylvanus Urban [pseudonym; Edward Cave], editor, The Gentleman’s Magazine: And Historical Chronicle, volume VIII, London: Printed by Edw[ard] Cave, jun. […], page 87, column 1

[James] Douglas – who had recently railed against Aldous Huxley’s Antic Hay for its ‘ordure and blasphemy’, summed the book up as ‘describing the orgies of vice practised by a group of moral degenerates who stimulate their degraded lusts by doses of cocaine and heroin’.

2012, Kevin Jackson, “November”, in Constellation of Genius: 1922: Modernism Year One, London: Hutchinson; 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013, page 320