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

• chaff
• deadwood
• debris
• dreck
• drek
• dross
• dust
• effluvium
• effluvia
• junk
• litter
• offal
• offscouring
• raffle
• refuse
• riffraff
• rubbish
• scrap
• spilth
• trash
• truck
• waste

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

In the first images of Read since her second trial, Fox News Digital exclusively captured the 45-year-old wheeling a garbage bin outside her Boston hotel. —Michael Dorgan, FOXNews.com, 21 June 2025

Seal garbage tightly in bags, and rinse out bottles and cans before placing in recycling bins. —Arricca Elin Sansone, Southern Living, 18 June 2025

Miami-Dade: Regular garbage and recycling pickup and disposal facilities will be open. —David J. Neal, Miami Herald, 17 June 2025

All visitors must use the bear-resistant food lockers provided at each site, and keep garbage and toiletries like toothpaste locked up in the locker or a vehicle when not in use, Boyd said. —Tiney Ricciardi, Denver Post, 12 June 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