> Even crazier I can't figure out how we arrive at the modern meaning of decaying vegetables to make soil...
The etymology I see all mentions "composte" as "mixture of leaves, manure, etc., for fertilizing land", which suggests that it started as people using a *composita of manure and plant detritus together to ferment for fertilizer and the word sense shifted from referring to the specific mixture to the general composting process.
The etymology I see all mentions "composte" as "mixture of leaves, manure, etc., for fertilizing land", which suggests that it started as people using a *composita of manure and plant detritus together to ferment for fertilizer and the word sense shifted from referring to the specific mixture to the general composting process.