The word 'dust' is kinda peculiar. The verb form dust means to remove the dust from something, not to add dust to it. Is there a term for this type of word relationship and are there other examples?
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1It's not a noun-verb issue, but the logic of shorthand speech. Pitted prunes have pits out, and baby formula is made with no infant ingredients. However, Amelia Bedelia, too, experienced these challenges and often got stuck.– Yosef BaskinCommented Jan 23, 2022 at 22:23
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1Interesting! Skin, fleece, gut, husk, shell, paunch (sort of), louse (obsolete), er... behead (sounds like the opposite of de-head!). I haven't found a name for them.– Old BrixtonianCommented Jan 23, 2022 at 22:26
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2You can dust a cake with very finely ground sugar.– Michael HarveyCommented Jan 23, 2022 at 22:49
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2The verb dust means to remove dust, just as the verb skin means to remove skin, the verb milk means remove milk, and the verb core means to remove a core. These are called Privative verbs; there are also Provisional verbs, like roof, fence, and water, which mean to add these things, instead of removing them like Privative verbs. All of these verbs come from nouns, but there are many different ways to make a verb out of a noun.– John LawlerCommented Jan 24, 2022 at 1:36
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2Does this answer your question? Why is the verb "dust" used in opposite forms? We've even got a tag for the linguistic phenomenon involved - auto-antonyms. See also Dust vs. Undust?– FumbleFingersCommented Jan 24, 2022 at 12:24
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