dross

play

noun \ ˈdräs , ˈdrȯs \

Definition of dross

1 metallurgy :the scum or unwanted material that forms on the surface of molten metal

2 :waste or foreign matter :impurity

3 :something that is base (see ³base 7), trivial, or inferior

There is quite a lot of dross on TV these days.

a talent for turning literary dross into gold

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drossy

play \ˈdrä-sē, ˈdrȯ-\ adjective

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dross was our Word of the Day on 01/07/2016. Hear the podcast!

Examples of dross in a Sentence

There is quite a lot of dross on TV these days.
His editor has a talent for turning literary dross into gold.

Recent Examples of dross from the Web

With its ability to vary stimuli in tactile ways, MuSE helps the mind unconsciously sort through the dross of vast amounts of sensory input and pull out the nuggets.

— richard rapaport, WIRED, "The Playground of Big Science," 1 Oct. 1995

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'dross.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Did You Know?

Dross has been a part of the English language since Anglo-Saxon times; one 19th-century book on Old English vocabulary dates it back to 1050 A.D. Its Old English ancestors are related to Germanic and Scandinavian words for "dregs" (as in "the dregs of the coffee") - and, like "dregs," dross is a word for the less-than-desirable parts of something. Over the years, the relative worthlessness of dross has often been set in contrast to the value of gold, as for example in British poet Christina Rossetti's "The Lowest Room": "Besides, those days were golden days, / Whilst these are days of dross" (1875).