garbage

noun

gar·​bage ˈgär-bij 

1

a

: food waste

b

: discarded or useless material

2

a

: trash sense 1b

b

: inaccurate or useless data

Synonyms

• trash
• debris
• rubbish
• junk
• dust
• litter
• truck
• sewage

Examples of garbage in a Sentence

The park was littered with garbage.

Please take out the garbage.

Raccoons were going through the garbage.

Throw the can in the garbage.

If you ask me, what he said is a bunch of garbage.

Recent Examples on the Web

An employee threw the potato strips in the garbage. —Camila Pedrosa, Sacbee.com, 17 Oct. 2025

In December, a 10-day-old baby girl was found dead in a garbage dump in the city of Baghpat. —Aishwarya S. Iyer, CNN Money, 16 Oct. 2025

New York teetered on the edge of bankruptcy - the city shuttered more than a dozen firehouses, teachers went on strike and garbage piled up in the streets. —NPR, 15 Oct. 2025

Skunks occasionally eat garbage and carrion. —Arricca Elin Sansone, Southern Living, 15 Oct. 2025

Word History

Etymology

Middle English, "poultry organs and body parts used for food, poultry refuse," borrowed from Anglo-French *garbage (implied in sergant garbagere "kitchen servant tasked with plucking and cleaning poultry"), of obscure origin

Note: On morphological, semantic, or chronological grounds unlikely to be related to Anglo-French garbeler, Middle English garbelen "to remove (impurities) from spices" (see garble entry 1) or to Middle French gaburge, grabuge "quarrel, brawl." The Anglo-French collocation sergant garbagere indicates currency of the word as early as 1318 (Household Ordinances of Edward II).

First Known Use

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Phrases Containing garbage

• a lot of garbage/nonsense
• garbage can
• garbage disposal
• garbage time
• garbage truck

Kids Definition

garbage

noun

gar·​bage ˈgär-bij 

1

: food waste

2

: discarded or useless material : refuse

3

: something inferior, worthless, or useless

a show that's garbage