garbage time

noun

US, sports

: the final moments or minutes of a game in which one side has an insurmountable lead, substitutes often enter the game in place of starting players, and scoring is typically easier because of looser defensive play

… the forgotten foursome of Greg Kite, Fred Roberts, Sam Vicent and Conner Henry will be on call in case of extreme emergency and those meaningless minutes appropriately referred to as garbage time.

—Gerry Finn

One touchdown was all the Broncos' D allowed, and that came in garbage time.

—Paul Zimmerman

Examples of garbage time in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Luka Garza, Xavier Tillman and Amari Williams didn’t check in until garbage time. —Zack Cox, Boston Herald, 5 Dec. 2025

Heck, before garbage time, the Steelers ran only 40 plays. —Joe Buscaglia, New York Times, 1 Dec. 2025

Green Bay beat Detroit 27-13 at home to open the season, as the Packers gave up just one touchdown, which came in garbage time and cut Green Bay's lead from 27-6 to 27-13. —Tyler Everett, MSNBC Newsweek, 27 Nov. 2025

Kings coach Doug Christie had good things to say about Murray’s debut against the Grizzlies despite scoring just 11 points in 33 minutes in the 41-point blowout, including playing him in fourth-quarter garbage time. —Chris Biderman, Sacbee.com, 23 Nov. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1960, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for garbage time

• aforetime
• allozyme
• anytime
• christmastime
• cybercrime
• dinnertime
• guggenheim
• isozyme
• lysozyme
• maritime
• mesenchyme
• overtime