"to soil or wet by dragging in dirt or mud or from being rained upon," 1727, from be- + draggle "to drag or draw along damp ground or mud." Also in a similar sense were bedrabble (mid-15c.), bedaggle (1570s).

c. 1400, "to cultivate (land, a garden) by manual labor," also "to hold property, rule," from Anglo-French meynoverer (late 13c.), Old French manovrer "to work with the hands, cultivate; carry out; make, produce," from Medieval Latin manuoperare (see maneuver (n.))

 Sense of "work the earth" led to "put dung and compost on the soil, treat (soil) with fertilizing materials" (1590s) and to the noun meaning "dung spread as fertilizer," which is first attested 1540s. Until late 18c., however, the verb still was used in a figurative sense of "to cultivate the mind, train the mental powers."

It is ... his own painfull study ... that manures and improves his ministeriall gifts. [Milton, 1641]

Related: Manured; manuring. Another Middle English word for "manuring" was donginge.

"tool to make a hole in the soil (as to plant seeds)," mid-15c., probably from Middle English dibben "to dip" (c. 1300, perhaps akin to or an alteration of dip (v.)) + instrumental suffix -el (1). The verb, "make a hole with or as with a dibble," is from 1580s. Related: Dibbled; dibbling.

"fine, soft, loose earth," Old English molde "earth, sand, dust, soil; land, country, world," from Proto-Germanic *mulda (source also of Old Frisian molde "earth, soil," Old Norse mold "earth," Middle Dutch moude, Dutch moude, Old High German molta "dust, earth," Gothic mulda "dust"), from PIE root *mele- "to crush, grind." Specifically, since late (Christian) Old English, "the earth of the grave." Also, from c. 1300 as "earth as the substance out of which God made man; the 'dust' to which human flesh returns."

The proper spelling is mold, like gold (which is exactly parallel phonetically); but mould has long been in use, and is still commonly preferred in Great Britain. [Century Dictionary, 1897]

daughter of Cadmus and mother (by Zeus) of Dionysus, via Latin from Greek Semelē, who seems to have been originally a Thraco-Phrygian earth goddess. From Phrygian Zemele "mother of the earth." Phrygian was an Indo-European language of central Anatolia, and the word probably is cognate with Old Church Slavonic zemlja "earth," Latin humus "earth, ground, soil" (from PIE root *dhghem- "earth").

common name of a type of clayey soil much used in pigments, late 13c., oker, ocre, from Old French ocre (c. 1300) and directly from Medieval Latin ocra, from Latin ochra, from Greek khra, from khros "pale yellow," a word of unknown origin. It consists hydrated sesquioxids of iron mixed with various earthy materials, principally silica and alumina. As a color name, "brownish-yellow," it is attested from mid-15c. Related: Ochreous.