Talk:excrement

Objection on defs

Says who, that def #1 is archaic ? It ain't, and def #2 doesn't even need to be here. --Jerome Potts 19:31, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Def #1 is talking about not only feces, but any waste matter from any bodily organ. In the example, mucous from the nose is called excrement. This is what is archaic. The modern meaning of excrement is only feces, as described in def #2 (we consider humans to be animals as well, you know). —Stephen 09:54, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Bah, urine is an excrement, and so are vomit, spit, and mucous (and are dejections as well). See excrete. My Webster's Third New International unabridged Dictionary adds "[waste] usually discharged from the alimentary canal". As concerns def 2, the term "animal" seems to indicate that the word at hand is to be used when referring to… animals, but not to humans. Is "animal" an adjective there ? I looked it up, and failed to find a def of it as meaning "biological" (maybe it's simply missing). In any case, the defs here are awkward, and complicate the whole entry : excrements are dejections of any animated creature, and there's nothing obsolete about that. If i'm mistaken, then what has it been replaced with ? "Human waste" ? --Jerome Potts 21:20, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

To define further the limits of the term, i don't suppose that semen or saliva should labeled as excrements, since they are not contaminants which the body wishes to be rid of ; saliva can be used as a balm ("to lick one's wounds") or a lubricant ("to lick one's lips" (or whatever)). And semen is meant to enter another person's body. --Jerome Potts 21:37, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

...which leads me to add that drool and semen are dejections, and that excrements are dejections of the refusal kind. --Jerome Potts 21:47, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

The excretory system is still a medical term for the urinary system, and the urinary system only. I believe it is a disfavored term in modern medicine because it has fallen out of step with the popular use of excrement as a euphemism for feces, but it has not shifted its meaning to being a synonym of the digestive system either as one might expect. I try to avoid this word altogether since there may be dictionaries still in use, in various languages, that still use the older meaning. —Soap— 05:32, 22 January 2024 (UTC)