mussel-mudn.
/ˈmʌslmʌd/, U.S. /ˈməs(ə)lˌməd/ Chiefly North American.
Mud containing a large number of mussels or mussel shells, used as fertilizer.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the earth > structure of the earth > constituent materials > earth or soil > mud > [noun] > deposited by river or sea > containing shells
snail cod1649
snag-greet1651
mussel-mud1774
mussel bed1851
1774 J. Adams in J. Adams & A. Adams Familiar Lett. (1876) 18 But I long more still to see the procuring more sea-weed, and muscle mud, and sand, etc.
1825 Prince Edward Island Reg. (Charlottetown) 23 Aug. 1/1 Plenty of manure [is] at hand, either kelp, seaweed, mussle-mud, [etc.].
1851 J. F. W. Johnston Notes N. Amer. II. 151 Mussel-mud,..the most apparently singular way of using it is to put it, with the mussels still living, into the turnip-drills, where it gives alone an excellent crop of turnips.
1915 Proc. Comm. Conservation (1916) 71 This mussel-mud, as it is called, is a very valuable fertilizer.
1973 Canad. Antiques Collector Jan. 64/1 Of special value [as fertilizer] was the ‘deep, black, stinking mud’, better known as ‘mussel-mud’—which lay thick in the beds of the Island's many tidal estuaries.
1997 Jrnl. Applied Ecol. 34 450 Mussels, seeded on experimental plots at stocking densities of between 2.5 and 10 kgm-1 deposited ‘mussel mud’ 13-33 cm deep.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2003; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1774