garbage
Americannoun
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discarded animal and vegetable matter, as from a kitchen; refuse.
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any matter that is no longer wanted or needed; trash.
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a bin or other receptacle for discarded matter, especially kitchen waste; garbage can.
Hey, who threw my leftover pizza in the garbage?
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anything that is contemptibly worthless, inferior, or vile.
There's nothing but garbage on TV tonight.
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worthless talk; lies; foolishness.
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Informal. any unnecessary item added to something else, as for appearance only; garnish.
I'll have an Old Fashioned, but without the garbage.
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useless artificial satellites or parts of rockets floating in space, as satellites that are no longer transmitting information or rocket boosters jettisoned in flight.
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Computers. meaningless or unwanted data.
That program was not properly debugged and produced nothing but garbage.
noun
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worthless, useless, or unwanted matter
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Also called: rubbish. discarded or waste matter; refuse
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computing invalid data
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informal nonsense
Etymology
Origin of garbage
First recorded in 1400–50; Middle English garbage, gabage “discarded parts of butchered fowls; entrails of fowls used for human food”; compare with Middle English garbelage “removal of refuse from spices,” Middle English garbelure “refuse found in spices,” and Old French garbage (also jarbage ) “tax on sheaves of grain,” but the shift of sense here is unclear; further origin uncertain; garble, -age
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“The biggest issue is that we have to figure out how to stop letting so much garbage back here,” said Jeffrey Flocken, president and chief executive of the aquarium.
From Los Angeles Times
Rubbish is piled high on street corners with no fuel for the state's garbage trucks to collect it.
From BBC
The Cuban people are living under dire conditions, without electricity, with little food, with garbage piled up on the streets and without adequate medical care.
A medical doctor, Drew studied for seven years in Cuba and said friends there have told him of food scarcity, power outages and garbage strewn in the streets.
From Barron's
The most grievous incident: someone had thrown garbage in a toilet on the carrier’s lowest deck.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
