Poo
Executive summary
Poo is the informal, chiefly child-directed word for solid waste expelled from the body — feces — and appears across major English dictionaries with similar definitions and usage notes poo" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">[1] [2] [3]. Lexicographers, medical references and corpora treat poo as synonymous with poop or excrement while noting its informal, diminutive tone and frequent use in child speech and everyday conversation [4] [5] [6].
1. What "poo" means and how dictionaries define it
Major dictionaries define poo as solid waste from the bowels or the act of passing that waste: Merriam‑Webster lists the meaning plainly as feces [1], Cambridge gives both the noun and verb senses [2], and the Britannica Dictionary highlights the child‑oriented phrasing “take a poo” or “do a poo” [3]. Dictionary.com and Collins likewise equate poo with excrement and note its informal or childish register, underlining that the word functions both as noun and verb in everyday English [5] [4].
2. Scientific and medical framing: stool, feces, and usage in research
In scientific and medical contexts, the term feces (or stool) is the preferred technical label, with sources explaining that “poo” and “poop” are the common lay alternatives outside formal literature [6]. Wikipedia’s entry on feces summarizes medical uses—stool as a clinical term and feces as the scientific term—and notes practical applications of feces in agriculture, fuel, construction, and even medical treatments like fecal transplants, though that source is a general overview rather than a clinical guideline [6].
3. Language, register, and etymology
Etymological accounts trace poo/poop to child‑speech and imitative origins; the Online Etymology entry connects modern poo to earlier senses and notes the term’s mid‑20th‑century attestation as a baby‑talk word for excrement [7]. Longman and Collins emphasize its informal and often diminutive force in English, which explains why speakers choose poo in family or colloquial settings rather than in clinical or formal writing [8] [4].
4. Cultural notes, slang, and related vocabulary
Across lexicons there is a rich family of synonyms and slang: thesaurus entries list dung, excrement, scat and poop as near‑synonyms, while users and corpora show poo’s prominence in children’s speech, humour, and idiomatic compounds [9] [8]. Digital culture also reflects this vocabulary: Wikipedia documents the “pile of poo” emoji (U+1F4A9), underscoring how the concept has been codified into modern online communication and humour [6].
5. Scope and limits of the reporting
The sources provided cover definitions, usage notes, etymology and some cultural applications but do not offer in‑depth medical specifications (such as composition percentages of human feces), quantitative health risks, or detailed guidelines for agricultural reuse; those topics require primary medical, environmental or agricultural research beyond the supplied dictionaries and encyclopedias [1] [6] [7]. Where medical or applied claims were mentioned in the general sources—like fecal transplants or agricultural uses—those were presented as summarized overviews rather than technical endorsements [6].