Is there a term for accumulated dirt on the outside of your hands and feet?

Question

As I sat in the steam room after half-killing myself at the gym earlier today, contemplating the meaning of life, I noticed that a certain amount of dirt had accumulated on the lateral sides of my – by that point rather pruny and wrinkly – hands, requiring a bit of scrubbing in the shower to become properly clean again.

I suddenly remembered always being told off as a kid by my parents and teachers and other such boring people for not scrubbing the sides of my hands properly, allowing for dirt to cake up there, even if the rest of the hand was clean enough; and similarly for the feet, where it typically builds up on the lateral side of the hindfoot, between the lower end of the fibula and the cuboid bone.

Into my mind popped the Danish word gravrust (referring literally to the type of corrosion called ‘pitting’ in English), which is used metaphorically for this specific type of dirt on the outside of the hands and feet that builds up over time if you’re not careful to scrub the sides properly when washing.¹

I don’t think I’ve heard this word since my days as a kid when boring adults were forever telling me to scrub it off, but I seem to recall it being used fairly often back then (rather more often that I would have liked, because it usually meant I had to go and wash my hands again).

It occurred to me that I don’t know of an English term for this kind of stubborn dirt, most commonly seen on kids who enjoy wreaking havoc in the garden rather more than scrubbing their hands to remove what’s left of said garden afterwards. Since such a preference is not unusual in children, I’m guessing the condition is well-known to most parents in English-speaking countries as well… but after about five minutes of battling with Google, I am no wiser as to what they call it. I can’t find anyone mentioning it in any terms that I can think of to Google for.

There are of course any number of general terms for dirty children (grimy, grubby for the kids themselves; crud, muck, smut for the dirt), but they’re all quite general – they just refer to dirt on the body in general and don’t carry the connotation of being resistant to casual washing. Gravrust, conversely, refers to dirt which is in a position that tends to be missed when washing your hands or feet (the lateral edges), and therefore tends to build up more easily, to the point that vigorous scrubbing is required to get rid of it.

Is there a specific word or expression for this in English, beyond descriptive phrases like caked dirt on the sides of your hands?

Note: Dialectal and regional terms are welcome. The Danish word is quite colloquial and, as mentioned, somewhat limited in scope, and it’s fine if any English equivalent is too.

 

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^{1 A quick dictionary and Google search reveals that it can be used for caked dirt elsewhere as well, but I’ve only ever heard it used to refer to the stuff that builds up on the lateral sides of hands and feet.}

Answer 1

The Cambridge Dictionary has the word

grime

noun

a layer of dirt on skin or on a building:

This is typically used to mean ingrained dirt such as you describe, not fresh dirt, and does not easily wash off.

Answer 2

Children who have been playing in mud or dirt are usually accused of having grubby hands and/or feet. However this doesn't just refer to the sides of said extremities.

Picture showing grubby hands.

Answer 3

This is sometimes called deep dirt in the body-cleansing biz.

... water ... and a good exfoliating soap ... an acid wash for deep dirt.

Answer 4

crud comes to mind.

a substance which is considered unpleasant or disgusting, typically because of its dirtiness.

In my mind this has connotations to 'bodily muck' -- moreover, ODO gives the example:

Use a good soap compound to remove accumulated crud.

Oxford Dictionaries.

If you're looking for a more long-term phrase, there's always build-up you could add.
See the title of this document.

Answer 5

Schmutz - Yiddish Dirt, crud, grime that can be rubbed off our skin.

Answer 6

accumulated dirt = encrusted.

Specifically, on the lateral sides of your fingers? That's going to need some creative writing.

"His palms were seemingly clean because he had been working out all day, but were however otherwise encrusted with filth."

Answer 7

Interesting to note that an image search for "grimy hands" almost universally shows clean hands with clean nails and evenly applied dirt, or even dirt applied only to protruding parts of the pads, rather than ground-in grime in the joints, around fingernails, between fingers and around the palm. I get the feeling modern photographers and hand models know nothing about grime :D

My father, one time, spent several minutes each morning trying to clean my neck and behind my ears. It was engrimed with a ring of dark dirt. He would have me stand over the sink and assiduously try to scrub it off, as had his mother before him: he reasoned that kids get grime behind their ears, it is known, and as they cannot see to clean it, so their parents must do it for them.

Eventually, he sheepishly realized it wasn't grime... just the remains of my summer tan!

The term he used for this phenomenon as he tried to clean it, was tidemark or tideline.

This is used in any situation where a line of dirt or debris is left, especially from water action:

The dark line created by drying liquid, at the farthest point of liquid migration in the paper or board. The line itself is dirt transported by the liquid; the dirt embeds itself deeply into the paper fibres becoming tenacious and difficult to remove. -- http://www.art-conservation.org/?page_id=1189

A related term is ring-around-the-collar, though this more typically means a ring of dirt embedded into the clothes, than the neck; and either way couldn't apply to the hand or foot.

However, I think what you are referring to may instead be the thick layer of dead skin around the foot and hand: that is, the things that pumice stones are sold to remove. These areas of thick skin are called a "callus".

Answer 8

I simply have no concept of this gravrust that you describe so well. It seems from the other answers that nobody else does either! Except, presumably, your fellow Danes. We non-Danes can't imagine why dirt would collect on the sides of our hands and feet like this. It seems unlikely that there is a genetic element involved.

This may be an example of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis in action: we have no word for it, therefore it doesn't exist in our minds. Here is an apposite extract from the linked PowerPoint presentation:

In linguistics, the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis states that there are certain thoughts of an individual in one language that cannot be understood by those who live in another language.

In other words, we are baffled by your gravrust because of the limitations of our language.

Another explanation is possible: that it doesn't exist in our minds, therefore we have no word for it. I don't know what this hypothesis is called; if it were up to me, it would be the Whorf-Sapir Hypothesis.