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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).

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 on the Web The dross is the part where Jesus turns to address the poor man directly, like a real person instead of a prop for conjectural argument, and heals his hand. — Vinson Cunningham, The New Yorker, "What Thomas Jefferson Could Never Understand About Jesus," 28 Dec. 2020 From the days of the Gold Rush and the earliest years of statehood, visitors to California have noticed dross mixed with the glitter. — Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, "Column: California isn’t ‘hemorrhaging’ people, but there are reasons for concern," 24 Dec. 2020 Many of the things left at the sorry corner are manifestly ugly or useless, yet it should not be assumed that this always represents the true dross, that all the promising stuff was taken. — Rafil Kroll-zaidi, Harper's Magazine, "Reason Not the Need," 15 Sep. 2020 The difference is that the Rosses have orchestrated the dross themselves. — Josephine Livingstone, The New Republic, "What Was the Dive Bar?," 10 July 2020 Peruvians could already throw out the dross, and often did. — The Economist, "Peru’s president opens Pandora’s box," 10 Oct. 2019 Sales typically reward formula and facility more than artistic power; history is full of masterpieces undersold in their own times and prize-winning blockbusters now remembered as dross, if at all. — Nathan Heller, The New Yorker, "James Gray’s Journey from the Outer Boroughs to Outer Space," 9 Sep. 2019 Shedding the dross, revealing the true nature within. — Patrick May, The Mercury News, "Back to the playa: Burning Man 2019 brings images of fire and fun," 28 Aug. 2019 Fans have been vocal about the club's playing style over the last few months, calling it 'dross', and have even taken to the internet to grade Big Sam's performance in a club survey. — SI.com, "Big Sam's Future in Doubt as Talk of Marco Silva's Arrival Filters into Everton's Dressing Room," 10 May 2018

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.