Merda profana

Source

Merda: feces

Look up merda in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Merda is the basic Latin word for excrement. Frequently used, it appears in most of the Romance languages. Excreta, literally "things expelled", referred most frequently to feces but could describe any bodily excretion. In its modern technical use, excreta is generally used to encompass fecal matter and urine.
Etymology Merda represents Indo-European *s-merd-, whose root sense was likely "something malodorous." It is cognate with German Mist (dung), Russian "смердеть" ("to stink") and Polish śmierdzieć ( "to stink").

Usage

The word merda is attested in classical texts mostly in veterinary and agricultural contexts, meaning "manure". Cato the Elder uses it, as well as stercus, while the Mulomedicina Chironis speaks of merda bubula, "cattle manure". But Martial 3.17 uses it in its typical metaphorical sense, speaking of inedible cooking:

Sed nemo potuit tangere: merda fuit.

But nobody could touch it: it was shit.

Synonyms and metaphors

The politer terms for merda in Classical Latin were stercus (gen. stercoris), "manure" and fĭmus, "filth." Stercus was used frequently in the Vulgate, as in its well known translation of Psalm 113:7:

Suscitans a terra inopem, et de stercore erigens pauperem.

("He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill." KJV)

 In the Romance languages

Merda is productive in the Romance languages, and is the obvious etymon of French merde, Spanish mierda, Galician merda, Catalan merda and in Vegliot Dalmatian miarda. It is preserved unaltered in Italian, Sardinian and Portuguese. It was preserved in Romanian too, not for feces, where căcat (derived from caco) is used instead, but in the word dezmierda, originally meaning "to clean the bottom of (an infant)"; subsequently becoming "to cuddle" or "to fondle".^[9]