| 释义 |
dirt-eating, vbl. n.|ˈdɜːtiːtɪŋ|
1. The eating of some kinds of earth or clay as food, practised by some primitive peoples, as the Ottomaks of South America and some Arctic tribes.
2. A disorder of the nutritive functions characterized by a morbid craving to eat earth or dirt.
1817Edin. Rev. XXVIII. 359 The accounts..of the Stomach-evil, sometimes called Dirt-eating. 1828Life Planter Jamaica (ed. 2) 97 For some time past she had been addicted to dirt-eating (eating earth)..a disease, which..terminates in dropsy and death. 1834W. Ind. Sk. Book II. 49 The singular propensity to dirt-eating, a disease which has acquired from the French the name of mal d'estomac. |