Picture a going into a and bringing up pale, earth. It is not clean clay and not clean chalk: it is the two mixed, sometimes with sand as well, so it breaks apart in your hand. Because the lime in it sweetens sour ground and the clay in it holds water, people have been carrying this earth out of pits and onto fields for centuries. Mixture is the whole point of the word.
可以想成一把鏟子插進山坡，挖出蒼白、易碎的土。它不是純黏土，也不是純石灰，而是兩種混在一起，有時候還摻了沙，所以在手裡一捏就散。裡面的石灰可以中和太酸的地，黏土可以留住水分，因此幾百年來人們一直把這種土從坑裡挖出來、鋪到田上。「混在一起」正是這個字的重點。
From the word’s history
The source entry supplied here takes marl through Middle English marle and Old French marle back to Late Latin margila, a small form of marga, marl. The word has named this same earth the whole way down.
本包附的來源條目說 marl 經由中古英語 marle、古法文 marle，回到晚期拉丁文 margila，那是 marga（泥灰土）的小稱形式。這個字一路下來指的都是同一種土，意思沒有換過。
Wiktionary, "marl"
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