garbage
English · Thesaurus
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garbage
- /ˈɡɑː.bɪd͡ʒ/ UK
- /ˈɡɑɹ.bɪd͡ʒ/ Canada, US
- /ˈɡaː.bɪd͡ʒ/ Australia
Where it comes from
From late Middle English garbage (“the offal of a fowl, giblets, kitchen waste”, originally “refuse, what is purged away”), from Anglo-Norman, from Old French garber (“to refine, make neat or clean”), of Germanic origin, from Frankish *garwijan (“to make ready”).
Akin to Old High German garawan (“to prepare, make ready”), Old English ġearwian (“to make ready, adorn”). More at garb, yare, gear
noun garbidge
- Food waste material of any kind.
- Foul, rotten or unripe vegetable matter.
-
Useless or disposable material; waste material of any kind.
The garbage truck collects all residential municipal waste.
Similar: junk, refuse, rubbish, trash, waste, cultch, crap, debris, dreck, drek, garbage, gash
-
Specifically, waste material destined not to be reclaimed through recycling, composting, etc.
Compost goes in the brown bin and is picked up Monday, recycling goes in blue bags and is picked up Wednesday, and garbage goes in black bags and is picked up Thursday.
Opposite: recyclable
- A place or receptacle for waste material. He threw the newspaper into the garbage.
-
Nonsense; gibberish.
This machine translation is garbage.
Similar: double Dutch, flim-flam, mumbo jumbo, absurdity, all my eye, all my eye and Betty Martin, apple grease, applesauce, bafflegab, balderdash, balls, baloney
-
Something or someone worthless.
The dissenting Christian Advocate asked (5 January 1835) how a cabinet composed of the very garbage of Toryism could be expected to share the spirit of Peel’s manifesto.
Similar: cheapie, duff, dirtbag, crapola, garbage, gash, hunk of junk, load of bull, load of crap, load of shit, piece of crap, piece of garbage · Opposite: asset, catch, find, prize, resource, treasure, valuable
- The bowels of an animal; refuse parts of flesh; offal.
- An easy shot. Yet, even without the three second rule, where your big man could camp underneath and take those delightful “garbage” shots, there was little or no pivot offense, no cutting off the bucket.
- Allocated memory which is no longer in use but has not yet been deallocated.
- Data that are misinterpreted as another kind of data.
verb garbages · garbaging · garbaged · garbidge
-
to eviscerate
I have bought at Boston a dozen Pidgeons ready pulled and garbidged for three pence.
Similar: disembowel, eviscerate, gut
adjective garbidge
- bad, crap, shitty Forget about that garbage advice to “act natural”.
Thesaurus
Closest in meaning: refuse, food waste, scraps, littering, junkyard, dump, debris, landfill, dustbin, wastebasket, dumpster, toilet, scrap, burial, bin, basket
Translations
Every language
noun waste material
| Español | basura, desperdicios |
|---|---|
| 한국어 | 쓰레기 sseuregi, 오물 omul |
| 日本語 | ごみ gomi, 廃物 haibutsu, がらくた garakuta, 廃品 haihin |
| 中文 | 垃圾 lājī, lèsè, 廢物 /废物 fèiwù, 破爛 /破烂 pòlàn, pòlànr, 廢品 /废品 fèipǐn |
| हिन्दी | कचरा kacrā, कूड़ा kūṛā |
| Português | lixo |
| Français | ordures, déchet, poubelle |
| Deutsch | Abfall, Müll |
| Italiano | immondizia, spazzatura, rifiuti |
| Ελληνικά | απορρίματα aporrímata, σκουπίδια skoupídia |
| Română | gunoi |
| Русский | му́сор músor, отбро́сы otbrósy, хлам xlam, сор sor, сме́тье smétʹje |
| Tiếng Việt | rác |
| العربية | زُبَالَة zubāla, نُفَايَات nufāyāt, قُمَامَة qumāma, مُخَلَّفَات muḵallafāt |
| עברית | זֶבֶל zével, אַשְׁפָּה ashpá |
noun nonsense
| 한국어 | 개털 gaeteol |
|---|
noun someone or something worthless
| 한국어 | 개털 gaeteol |
|---|
Talk about this word "garbage." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/garbage. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. garbage. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/garbage "garbage." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/garbage.Cite this
@misc{garbage_2026,
title = {garbage},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/garbage},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
