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

The Fever chose to keep two extra bigs on their roster (neither Brianna Turner nor Makayla Timpson played before garbage time) instead of another guard, a decision that was odd at the time and has aged poorly. —Sabreena Merchant, New York Times, 29 May 2025

The other non-rotation backup who saw action before garbage time was Torrey Craig. —Zack Cox, Boston Herald, 7 Apr. 2025

Filtering out garbage time, the Celtics are seven percentage points higher than second place in 3-point volume this season. —Shane Young, Forbes.com, 5 Apr. 2025

The Warriors swarmed defensively, holding Charlotte to 53 points on 31% shooting and forcing 18 turnovers before the 16-minute garbage time. —Danny Emerman, The Mercury News, 26 Feb. 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