This noun denotes mud or mire, the thick, wet earth that soils and entraps. In 2 Peter 2:22, it appears in a proverb about a washed pig returning to wallow in the mud—illustrating apostates who return to their former defilement after experiencing cleansing. Classical usage extends to sewers and metaphorically to foul verbal abuse. The translations (Spanish lodo, German Kot, French retaining the Greek) all emphasize the filthy, polluting nature of this substance, fitting the passage's vivid imagery of regression to moral contamination.