Clarty

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Covered with or consisting of mud, dirt, or other filthy matter
2. Smeared with sticky dirt or clay-like substance in a grimy state
3. Soiled with mud or grime in a messy, unclean state

Etymology: "Clarty" is a Scottish and northern English word meaning dirty, muddy or sticky, and it is built in the simplest possible way: the noun "clart", meaning mud, dirt or a sticky mess, plus the suffix "-y", which turns a noun into an adjective meaning "full of" or "characterised by" that thing. A clarty field is one churned into mud, and a clarty child has come in from play covered in it. The root "clart" is older than the suffix. It descends from a Proto-Germanic base, reconstructed as "gaz" (with "-kos" in Proto-Indo-European), which passed into Old English as a form that became Middle English "clart" and survived in the northern dialects long after standard English had moved on. The "-y" ending came into the language in Middle English, and the combination is a plain example of a dialect word that never needed a literary standard to keep it alive.

Synonyms: muddy, dirty, grimy

Antonyms: clean, spotless