It all started with me looking out the window at the piddling rain and declaring to my work colleague that ‘the weather is minging’. My workmate turned to me, scrunching up his nose and said ‘I don’t like the word minging, it’s just not nice’. Cue a short discussion about the origin of the word minging which culminated in me reaching for my dictionary to look ‘minging’ up. As it turns out that origin of minging isn’t that nice as it might comes from the Scots dialect ming meaning excrement. Who knew?

Minging – adjective Brit informal very bad or unpleasant

- ORIGIN perhaps from Scots dialect ming ‘extrement’