dirtiest

1. 1
   adjective

   Superlative of dirty.

   After the flood, the river was the dirtiest it had been in decades.

   They handed the new recruit the dirtiest job on the whole farm.

   Note

   The top of the scale covers every sense of the adjective, not just the muddy one: the dirtiest joke, the dirtiest trick, the dirtiest deal. Like most two-syllable adjectives in -y, it takes -est rather than most, and the y turns to i before the ending. The same spelling also serves as an archaic verb form, so the surrounding words decide which one you are reading.

2. 2
   verbarchaic

   Second-person singular simple present indicative of dirty.

   Note

   Here -est is a person ending, not a degree: it marks a verb whose subject is thou. It can carry any sense of the verb, from soiling linen to tarnishing a name. Modern English says you dirty, so the form now belongs to period drama, pastiche and deliberately old-fashioned verse. Look for thou nearby to tell it from the superlative adjective.

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