mud: [14] The Old English word for ‘mud’ was fen, which now survives only in the sense ‘swamp’. It was replaced in the Middle English period by mud, probably a borrowing from Middle Low German mudde. This goes back ultimately to a prehistoric base *meu-, *mu- that has produced a range of words in the Indo- European languages denoting ‘dirt’ or ‘wet’: Greek múdos ‘damp’, for instance, and Polish mu? ‘slime’. Muddle [17] may come from Middle Dutch moddelen ‘make muddy’, a derivative of modde ‘mud’.
mud (n.)
mid-14c., cognate with and probably from Middle Low German mudde, Middle Dutch modde "thick mud," from Proto-Germanic *mud- from PIE *(s)meu-/*mu- [Buck], found in many words denoting "wet" or "dirty" (cognates: Greek mydos "damp, moisture," Old Irish muad "cloud," Polish mu? "slime," Sanskrit mutra- "urine," Avestan muthra- "excrement, filth"); related to German Schmutz "dirt," which also is used for "mud" in roads, etc., to avoid dreck, which originally meant "excrement." Welsh mwd is from English. Replaced native fen.
Meaning "lowest or worst of anything" is from 1580s. As a word for "coffee," it is hobo slang from 1925; as a word for "opium" from 1922. To throw or hurl mud "make disgraceful accusations" is from 1762. To say (one's) name is mud and mean "(one) is discredited" is first recorded 1823, from mud in obsolete sense of "a stupid twaddling fellow" (1708). Mud in your eye as a toast recorded from 1912, American English. Mud puppy "salamander" is from 1889, American English; mud bath is from 1798; mud pie is from 1788.
例文
1. Dogs love splashing in mud and hippos wallow in it.
犬は泥の水たまりでパタパタするのが好きで、カバはその中でゴロゴロするのが好きです。
2.I stumbled through mud to a yard strewn with straw.
私はよろよろと泥を渡って麦わらが積まれた庭に来た。
3.They spent much of their time knee-deep in mud .
彼らは膝の深い泥の中で長い時間を費やした。
4.The mud is a feeding ground for large numbers of birds.
大量の鳥がこの泥地に餌を探しに来た。
5.The salt marshes and mud flats attract large numbers of waterfowl.