rubbish
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈɹʌbɪʃ/
rhymes: -ʌbɪʃ
Forms: form: rubbishes
form: rubbage
Etymology: Inherited from Middle English robous (“rubbish, building rubble”), further origin uncertain; possibly from Anglo-Norman rubous, rubouse, rubbouse (“refuse, waste material; building rubble”), and compare Anglo-Latin rebbussa, robousa, robusium, robusum, rubisum, rubusa, rubusium (although the Anglo-Norman and Anglo-Latin words may be derived from the English word instead of the other way around, as there are no known Old French cognates of the word). The English word may be related to rubble, though the connection is unclear. Possibly derived ultimately from Old Norse rubba (“to huddle, crowd together, heap up", also possibly "to rub, scrape”), from Proto-Germanic *rubbōną (“to rub, scrape”). Compare Swedish rubba (“to move, displace, dislodge, upset”).
The verb is derived from the noun.
Senses: examples: text: The rubbish is collected every Thursday in Gloucester, but on Wednesdays in Cheltenham.
text: What traſh is Rome? / What Rubbiſh and what Offall? when it ſerues / For the baſe matter, to illuminate / So vile a thing as Cæsar.
ref: 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii], page 113:
english: Rome is trash, rubbish and offal when it serves as inferior matter that is burned to illuminate so vile a thing as Caesar.
translation: Rome is trash, rubbish and offal when it serves as inferior matter that is burned to illuminate so vile a thing as Caesar.
bold_translation_offsets: 15
22
text: [T]he Employments of the common Ants or Workers […] are partly the Management of the Young, and the Building their little Hills of Straw, Rubbiſh, and Particles of Earth, mixed with Blades of Graſs, into little Mounds or Ramparts, on which to expoſe the Eggs and Nymphs to the Sun-beams; their other great Employment is, in collecting Proviſions.
ref: [1747?] January 3, “[Literary Memoirs.] An Account of English Ants. By the Rev. William Gould, A.M. of Exeter-College, Oxon. London, printed for A[ndrew] Millar, 1747, 12mo. Pages 109, besides Preface and Dedication.”, in [Mark Akenside], editor, The Museum: Or, The Literary and Historical Register, volume II, number XXI, London: Printed for R[obert] Dodsley […], published 1746 (indicated on title page), →OCLC, page 272:
text: In the course of this operation [the copper-fastening of new, or the re-coppering of old, vessels], and more especially in a repair of this latter description, old copper nails, stray pieces of bold and sheet copper, with other parings of a similar nature, are lost among the chips, or in the bottom of the dock. These chips are sold at an almost nominal price, as rubbish, to the smelters, who cart them away often in large quantities, burn the chips out, then wash and smelt the remainder, if necessary, in the ordinary manner.
ref: 1851 July 19, “The Value of Rubbish [from Chambers’ Journal]”, in E[liakim] Littell, editor, Littel’s Living Age, volume XXX, number CCCLXXIV, Boston, Mass.: Published by E. Littel & Company; Philadelphia, Pa.: Getz & Buck, […]; New York, N.Y.: Dewitt & Davenport, […], →OCLC, chapter XXII, page 125, column 2:
text: The plaintiff claimed damages from the defendants for a breach of duty in allowing and permitting dirt and rubbish to be thrown or put upon a lane or public highway upon which his premises abutted. It appeared in evidence that the damage complained of was occasioned by the filling in and levelling a hollow in the lane, by means whereof the plaintiff's fence was pressed inwards, the filling in being done by private individuals throwing dirt and rubbish thereon.
ref: 1862 July, “Buchanan v. The Town of Galt”, in W[illiam] D[avis] Ardagh, Robert A[lexander] Harrison, editors, The Upper Canada Law Journal and Municipal and Local Courts’ Gazette, volume VII, Toronto, Ont.: Printed and published […] by W. C. Chewett & Co., →OCLC, page 182, column 1:
text: Simply because as Taciturn pretells, our wrongstoryshortener, he dumptied the wholeborrow of rubbages on to soil here.
ref: [1939 May 4, James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, London: Faber and Faber Limited, →OCLC; republished London: Faber & Faber Limited, 1960, →OCLC, part I, page 17:
text: […] I was sleeping with my head on the wooden arm of a seat as six attendants of the theater converged with their night's total of swept-up rubbish and created a huge dusty pile that reached to my nose as I snored head down—till they almost swept me away too. […] Had they taken me with it, Dean would have never seen me again. He would have had to roam the entire United States and look in every garbage pail from coast to coast before he found me embryonically convoluted among the rubbishes of my life, his life, and the life of everybody concerned and not concerned.
ref: 1957, Jack Kerouac, chapter 11, in On the Road, Viking Press, →OCLC:
text: Goats are adventurous eaters. They nose around in rubbish looking for scraps of food.
ref: 2015, Jody Sullivan Rake, “Rubbish-eating Goats”, in Abby Colich, editor, Rubbish Munchers of the Animal World, London: Raintree, Capstone Global Library, →ISBN, page 14:
synonyms: word: cultch
word: crap
word: debris
word: dreck
word: drek
word: garbage
word: junk
word: litter
word: pelf
word: piece of crap
word: piece of garbage
word: piece of shit
word: pile of crap
word: pile of shit
word: piece of trash
word: rubbish
word: refuse
word: roughage
word: service item
word: shit
word: stuff
word: trash
word: waste
glosses: Refuse, waste, garbage, junk, trash.
examples: text: Much of what they sell is rubbish.
text: [W]e may add that publications of this nature always contain much rubbiſh to make up the bulk; for to produce a neat collection of true wit, requires talents and judgment that would ſcarcely ſtoop to the taſk.
ref: 1793 February, “Art. 59. Scrapeana. Fugitive Miscellany. Small 8vo. pp. 352. 4s. sewed. Baldwin. 1792. [book review]”, in The Monthly Review; or, Literary Journal, Enlarged, volume X, London: Printed for R[alph] Griffiths; and sold by T[homas] Becket, […], →OCLC, page 232:
text: "And ain't you had nothing but that kind of rubbage to eat?" / "No, sah—nuffn' else."
ref: 1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter VIII, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC, page 65:
glosses: An item, or items, of low quality.
examples: text: Everything the teacher said during that lesson was rubbish. How can she possibly think that a bass viol and a cello are the same thing?
text: I ſhall […] lay out of my way the whole bede-roll of citations and precedents which they have produced, that heterogeneous heap of rubbiſh, which is only calculated to confound your Lordſhips, and miſlead the argument.
ref: 1774 April, “Summary of the Arguments of the Council and Judges in the Great Cause, which was Lately Heard before the House of Peers, for Ascertaining the Right of Literary Property. […]”, in Sylvanus Urban [pseudonym; Edward Cave], editor, The Gentleman’s Magazine, and Historical Chronicle, volume XLIV, London: Printed […], for D[avid] Henry, and sold by F[rancis] Newbery, […], →OCLC, page 149, column 2:
text: "Essays about what?" / "Oh—rubbish mostly." / There was a moment's pause. / "Oh, Lovat, don't be so silly. You know you don't think your essays rubbish," put in Harriet. "They're about life, and democracy, and equality, and all that sort of thing," Harriet explained.
ref: 1923, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “Neighbours”, in Kangaroo, London: Martin Secker […], →OCLC, pages 27–28:
text: But just now she felt that there was something flippant and unseemly in talking such fantastic rubbish: dreams seemed out of place when reality was so heartbreaking.
ref: 1933, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], chapter II, in The Way of the Scarlet Pimpernel, New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons, published 1934, →OCLC, pages 23–24:
synonyms: word: absurdity
word: all my eye
word: all my eye and Betty Martin
word: applesauce
word: bafflegab
word: balderdash
word: balls
word: baloney
word: banana oil
word: Bandini
word: baragouin
word: batcrap
word: batshit
word: bilgewater
word: blah
word: blather
word: blatherskite
word: bobbins
word: bollocks
word: bosh
word: BS
word: bull
word: bullcrap
word: bulldust
word: bull feathers
word: bullshit
word: bullspeak
word: bunk
word: bunkum
word: bushwah
word: clamjamfrey
word: claptrap
word: cobblers
word: codswallop
word: crap
word: crock
word: crock of shit
word: double Dutch
word: double talk
word: doublespeak
word: dribble
word: drivel
word: eyewash
word: fiddle-faddle
word: flapdoodle
word: flim-flam
word: flizz
word: flummery
word: folderol
word: foolishness
word: footle
word: framis
word: fuckery
word: fuckry
word: fudge
word: galimatias
word: garbage
word: garble
word: gibber
word: gibberish
word: gobbledygook
word: gossip
word: Greek
word: guff
word: gup
word: hoax
word: hocus-pocus
word: hogwash
word: hokum
word: hooey
word: horsefeathers
word: horse hockey
word: horse piss
word: horse puckey
word: horseshit
word: humbug
word: Irish bull
word: jabber
word: jargon
word: jibber-jabber
word: jimjam
word: jive
word: junk
word: lallation
word: macaroni
word: malarkey
word: manure
word: meaninglessness
word: moonshine
word: mumbo jumbo
word: nertz
word: nonsense
word: pie in the sky
word: piffle
word: pigswill
word: poppycock
word: prattle
word: put-on
word: rhubarb
word: rhubarb rhubarb
word: rigmarole
word: rot
word: rubbish
word: ruse
word: santorum
word: shit
word: shite
word: skimble-skamble
word: squit
word: stuff
word: stuff and nonsense
word: tommy-rot
word: tosh
word: tush
word: trash
word: tripe
word: twaddle
word: wass
word: whiff-whaff
word: word salad
glosses: Nonsense.
examples: text: That Antichriſt is a man exerciſing a kingdome, the head of the vniuerſall Apoſtaſie, […] the Romane monarchie being diuided and fallen downe, out of the rubbiſhes whereof, he is by litle & litle riſen & increaſed, thorow the power and forcible working of Sathan, […]
ref: 1600, Amandus Polanus, “And thus Farre Concerning Open Enemies: Now Concerning Dissembled Enemies”, in [Elijahu and Thomas Wilcocks], transl., The Svbstanec^([sic – meaning Svbstance]) of Christian Religion, […], imprinted at London: By Arn[old] Hatfield for Felix Norton, […], →OCLC, book I, page 446:
text: E'er since poor Cheapside cross in rubbage lay, […]
ref: 1646, John Hall, “A Satire”, in Poems, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Printed by Roger Daniel, printer to the Universitie, for J. Rothwell, […], →OCLC; republished London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, 1816, →OCLC, book I, page 34:
text: At length th' Almighty caſt a pitying eye, / And mercy ſoftly touch'd his melting breaſt: / He ſaw the town's one half in rubbiſh lie, / And eager flames give on to ſtorm the reſt.
ref: 1667, John Dryden, Annus Mirabilis: The Year of Wonders, 1666. […], London: […] Henry Herringman, […], →OCLC, stanza 280, page 71:
text: See, from afar, yon Rock that mates the Sky, / About whoſe Feet ſuch Heaps of Rubbiſh lye: / Such indigeſted Ruin; bleak and bare, / How deſart now it ſtands, expos'd in Air!
ref: 1697, Virgil, “The Eighth Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 441, lines 252–255:
text: Nothing remains of Utica, excepting a heap of rubbiſh and ſmall ſtones: but the trenches and approaches of the ancient beſiegers are ſtill very perfect.
ref: 1790 July, “Art. III. Mr. [James] Bruce’s Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile. [Article continued.]”, in The Monthly Review; or, Literary Journal, Enlarged, volume II, London: Printed for R[alph] Griffiths; and sold by T[homas] Becket, […], →OCLC, page 271:
glosses: Debris or ruins of buildings; rubble.
Derived terms: word: good riddance of bad rubbish
word: good riddance to bad rubbish
word: piece of rubbish
word: Rose Garden rubbish
word: rubbish bag
word: rubbish bin
word: rubbish dump
word: rubbishing
word: rubbish in, rubbish out
word: rubbishly
word: rubbishness
word: rubbish pulley
word: rubbishy
Related terms: word: rubble