Dung is the polite word for animal poop, especially from large animals like cows, horses, elephants, or sheep. Farmers often use the word dung instead of manure or droppings when talking about what comes out of their livestock.

For thousands of years, people have collected and used dung as fertilizer to help crops grow. Animal dung contains nutrients that enrich soil, making it more productive for farming. In some parts of the world, dried dung is even burned as fuel for cooking fires because it burns slowly and produces steady heat.

The word appears in many compound terms: a dung beetle is an insect that rolls balls of dung across the ground to feed its young, and a dung heap is a pile where farmers collect dung before spreading it on fields. While dung might sound unpleasant, it plays a surprisingly important role in agriculture and in nature's cycle of breaking down waste and returning nutrients to the soil.