Midden

The kitchen midden. The dust-bin. The farmer’s midden is the dunghill. The word is Scotch. (Danish, mödding; Norwegian, mudder; Welsh, mwydo (to wet), our mud and mire.)

Better marry over the midden than over the moor. Better seek a wife among your neighbours whom you know than among strangers of whom you know nothing. The midden, in Scotland, is the domestic rubbish heap.

Ilka cock craws loodest on its ain midden. In English, “Every cock crows loudest on his own dunghill.” A midden is an ash-pit, a refuse-heap.

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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.

Midden

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