rubbish
Part of speech: noun
adj
intj
verb
Morphological type: simple
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.
Inflected forms:
form: rubbishes
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: rubbage
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: more rubbish
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: rubbisher
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: most rubbish
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: rubbishest
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: rubbishes
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: rubbishing
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: rubbished
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: rubbished
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: Refuse, waste, garbage, junk, trash.
pos: noun
tags: Commonwealth
uncountable
usually
examples: The rubbish is collected every Thursday in Gloucester, but on Wednesdays in Cheltenham.
What traſh is Rome? / What Rubbiſh and what Offall? when it ſerues / For the baſe matter, to illuminate / So vile a thing as Cæsar.
[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.
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.
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.
Simply because as Taciturn pretells, our wrongstoryshortener, he dumptied the wholeborrow of rubbages on to soil here.
[…] 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.
Goats are adventurous eaters. They nose around in rubbish looking for scraps of food.
gloss: An item, or items, of low quality.
pos: noun
tags: Commonwealth
broadly
uncountable
usually
examples: Much of what they sell is rubbish.
[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.
"And ain't you had nothing but that kind of rubbage to eat?" / "No, sah—nuffn' else."
gloss: Nonsense.
pos: noun
tags: Commonwealth
broadly
uncountable
usually
examples: 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?
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.
"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.
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.
gloss: Debris or ruins of buildings; rubble.
pos: noun
tags: archaic
uncountable
usually
examples: 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, […]
E'er since poor Cheapside cross in rubbage lay, […]
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.
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!
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.
gloss: Exceedingly bad; awful.
pos: adj
tags: Commonwealth
Ireland
UK
colloquial
examples: This has been a rubbish day, and it’s about to get worse: my mother-in-law is coming to stay.
Disk interfaces have been around since the year dot, as people soon realised that the microdrive was unreliable, unstable and generally rubbish for the storage of anything, useless except as a rather small beermat.
A-level students will study Russell Brand's views on drugs and Caitlin Moran's Twitter feed alongside more conventional literature in a new A-level that was immediately denounced as "rubbish" by sources at the Department for Education.
gloss: Used to express that something is exceedingly bad, awful, or terrible.
pos: intj
tags: Commonwealth
Ireland
UK
colloquial
examples: - The one day I actually practice my violin, the teacher cancels the lesson.
- Aw, rubbish! Though at least this means you have time to play football.
gloss: Used to express that what was recently said is nonsense or untrue; balderdash!, nonsense!
pos: intj
tags: Commonwealth
Ireland
UK
colloquial
examples: Rubbish! I did nothing of the sort!
Rubbish, sir, rubbish! Pestilent and pernicious rubbish! An honest man must consider what he owes to his name and his rank. That is the first consideration.
gloss: To criticize, to denigrate, to denounce, to disparage.
pos: verb
tags: Commonwealth
Ireland
UK
colloquial
transitive
examples: In my judgment, it is not Christian—I think that is the proper way to put it—to rubbish the leaders of our trade union movements, both employers' and workers'. [...] The employers are quite right in rubbishing this section. The recently retired Chief Ombudsman rubbished it. The insurance guild, not exactly known as a militant trade union until recently, has rubbished it. Twenty-nine leaders in our community have rubbished it.
We're messing around at work, the three of us, getting ready to go home and rubbishing each other's five best side one track ones of all time [...]
Oh, there is fuel enough for the memoirs, even if Marion's eyes glaze over, periodically, during tea or one of Corrie's rather awful lunches [...]. The names flow forth, and are rubbished or extolled, [...]
'It's the first real acting job I've had and he completely rubbishes it. My career will be over before it even starts.' / 'I wouldn't take it too personally,' Shelley said as she reloaded the café dishwasher. 'Bryn Dwyer rubbishes just about everything. [...']
Such irresponsible comments seem to me clearly an attempt for political reasons to rubbish a past that was of a far better quality than anything that exists today.
Delia's Complete Cookery Course is still in print more than 40 years since its first publication. “Everybody did rubbish it,” she says.
gloss: To litter.
pos: verb
tags: Australia
Commonwealth
Hong-Kong
Ireland
UK
colloquial
transitive
examples: Speaking at today's (Tuesday) press conference to announce details of the show, Chairman of the Steering Committee, Mr Cheng Chun-ping urged members of the public to sustain their keep clean efforts and to let the message of the campaign slogan -- "There is never any excuse to rubbish your home" stride across the new Millennium.
In the 1970s there was a hugely successful campaign using the slogan: "You wouldn't rubbish your home. Australia's your home. Don't rubbish Australia." The adverts compared tossing table scraps on to the carpet with throwing food packaging from a car. It worked.
Related words: rubble
Derived words: good riddance of bad rubbish
good riddance to bad rubbish
gubbish
piece of rubbish
Rose Garden rubbish
rubbish bag
rubbish bin
rubbish dump
rubbishing
rubbish in, rubbish out
rubbishly
rubbishness
rubbish pulley
rubbishry
rubbish tip
rubbishy
unrubbish
rubbisher
Translations:
lang: Finnish
word: pahus
lang: German
word: Müll
lang: Hebrew
word: שטויות
roman: shtu'yot
lang: Hungarian
word: szemét
lang: Italian
word: schifezza
lang: Italian
word: sciocchezza
lang: Japanese
word: クズ
roman: kuzu
lang: Japanese
word: ゴミ
roman: gomi
lang: Portuguese
word: porcaria