Manure

(2 syl.) means hand-work (French, main-œuvre), tillage by manual labour. It now means the dressing applied to lands. Milton uses it in its original sense in Paradise Lost, iv. 628:—

“Yon flowery arbours, … with branches over-grown

That mock our scant manuring.”

⁂ In book xi. 26 he says, the repentant tears of Adam brought forth better fruits than all the trees of Paradise that his hands manured in the days of innocence.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.