• IPA: /sɔɪl/, [sɔɪ̯ɫ]

soil

1. (uncountable) A mixture of sand and organic material, used to support plant growth.
2. (uncountable) The unconsolidated mineral or organic material on the immediate surface of the earth that serves as a natural medium for the growth of land plants.
3. (uncountable) The unconsolidated mineral or organic matter on the surface of the earth that has been subjected to and shows effects of genetic and environmental factors of: climate (including water and temperature effects), and macro- and microorganisms, conditioned by relief, acting on parent material over a period of time. A product-soil differs from the material from which it is derived in many physical, chemical, biological, and morphological properties and characteristics.
4. Country or territory.

   The refugees returned to their native soil.

   Kenyan soil

5. That which soils or pollutes; a stain.
6. 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.
7. Dung; compost; manure.

   night soil

• (senses 1 to 3) dirt (US), earth

• solum

• French: sol, terre
• German: Erde, Grund
• Italian: suolo
• Portuguese: solo
• Russian: земля́
• Spanish: suelo

• French: terre, sol
• German: Boden
• Italian: terreno
• Portuguese: solo, terra
• Russian: по́чва

• French: terre, sol
• Portuguese: solo
• Russian: по́чва

• French: terre, territoire
• Portuguese: solo
• Russian: земля́
• Spanish: tierra

soil (soils, present participle soiling; past and past participle soiled)

1. (transitive) To make dirty.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book VIII”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708 ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554 ↗, lines 1073–1080:

     {...}}Bad Fruit of Knowledge, if this be to know, / Which leaves us naked thus, of Honour void, / Of innocence, of Faith, of Puritie, / Our wonted Ornaments now ſoild and ſtaind, / And in our Faces evident the ſignes / Of foul concupiſcence ; whence eveil ſtore ; / Even ſhame, the laſt of evils ; of the firſt / Be ſure then.

2. (intransitive) To become dirty or soiled.

   Light colours soil sooner than dark ones.

3. (transitive, figurative) To stain or mar, as with infamy or disgrace; to tarnish; to sully.
   • c. 1599–1602, William Shakespeare, The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: […] (Second Quarto), London: Printed by I[ames] R[oberts] for N[icholas] L[ing] […], published 1604, OCLC 760858814 ↗, [Act I, scene iv]:

     {...}}They clepe#English|clip vs drunkards, and with swinish#English|Swiniſh phraſe / Soyle our addition#English|addition, and indeede it takes / From our atchieuements, though perform’d at height#English|height / The pith and marrow of our attribute{{...}

4. (reflexive) To dirty one's clothing by accidentally defecating while clothed.
5. To make invalid, to ruin.
6. To enrich with soil or muck; to manure.

• (to make dirty) smirch, besmirch, dirty

• French: salir, (literary) souiller
• German: verschmutzen, beschmutzen
• Italian: sporcare
• Portuguese: sujar
• Russian: па́чкать
• Spanish: ensuciar

• Portuguese: arruinar, estragar

soil (plural soils)

1. (uncountable, euphemistic) Faeces or urine etc. when found on clothes.
2. (countable, medicine) A bag containing soiled items.

• (faeces or urine etc.) dirt

• French: souillure

soil (plural soils)

1. A wet or marshy place in which a boar or other such game seeks refuge when hunted.

soil (soils, present participle soiling; past and past participle soiled)

1. To feed, as cattle or horses, in the barn or an enclosure, 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.

   to soil a horse