soiling

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The act of making something dirty, such as by staining or marking it.

   Heavy soiling around the door handles forced the museum to restrict access.

   The cleaners charged extra for the soiling left on the upholstery.

   Similardirt, grime

   Note

   In the language of cleaning, the noun often names the result rather than the act. Kirk-Othmer Chemical Technology and the Environment (2007) describes a detergent's task as removing visible soilings. That plural, countable use treats each stain or deposit as a separate thing to be lifted. Elsewhere the word stays uncountable and takes words of degree, as in heavy soiling or some soiling.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of soil.

   Mud was soiling the hem of her coat as she crossed the field.

   The factory was soiling the river with untreated runoff.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every use of the verb soil, and the construction tells you which one is meant. With an object it means dirtying something, as when mud is soiling a hem. Without an object it means becoming dirty. With a reflexive pronoun, as in soiling oneself, it means dirtying one's clothes by accident. It can also mean enriching land with muck or manure. Once it takes a plural, soilings, it has become the countable noun.

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