garbage

noun

gar·​bage ˈgär-bij 

1

a

: food waste

b

: discarded or useless material

2

a

: trash sense 1b

b

: inaccurate or useless data

Synonyms

• chaff
• deadwood
• debris
• dreck
• drek
• dross
• dust
• effluvium
• effluvia
• junk
• litter
• offal
• offscouring
• raffle
• refuse
• riffraff
• rubbish
• scrap
• spilth
• trash
• truck
• waste

Examples of garbage in a Sentence

The park was littered with garbage.

Please take out the garbage.

Raccoons were going through the garbage.

Throw the can in the garbage.

If you ask me, what he said is a bunch of garbage.

Recent Examples on the Web

Not to be the bearers of bad news, but your garbage disposal isn’t as good at disposing of garbage as the name implies. —Melissa Locker, Southern Living, 7 Dec. 2024

There are two piles of garbage close to the Stage Star Deli at 105 West 55th Street, where the CCTV camera was recording. —Daniel R. Depetris, Newsweek, 6 Dec. 2024

Creating excessive smoke by burning garbage, mail, plastic, and other materials is also prohibited during the alert. —Bay City News Service, The Mercury News, 2 Dec. 2024

The brutally humid, sauna-like subway station platforms, the foul rotting sidewalk garbage stench that fills the air once temps hit 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and… sun damage in the form of hyperpigmentation. —Sarah Kinonen, Allure, 26 Nov. 2024

Word History

Etymology

Middle English, "poultry organs and body parts used for food, poultry refuse," borrowed from Anglo-French *garbage (implied in sergant garbagere "kitchen servant tasked with plucking and cleaning poultry"), of obscure origin

Note: On morphological, semantic, or chronological grounds unlikely to be related to Anglo-French garbeler, Middle English garbelen "to remove (impurities) from spices" (see garble entry 1) or to Middle French gaburge, grabuge "quarrel, brawl." The Anglo-French collocation sergant garbagere indicates currency of the word as early as 1318 (Household Ordinances of Edward II).

First Known Use

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Phrases Containing garbage

• a lot of garbage/nonsense
• garbage can
• garbage disposal
• garbage time
• garbage truck

Kids Definition

garbage

noun

gar·​bage ˈgär-bij 

1

: food waste

2

: discarded or useless material : refuse

3

: something inferior, worthless, or useless

a show that's garbage