deadwood

discarded or useless material much of the material in the file cabinets is just deadwood Synonyms chaff, garbage, debris, dreck (also drek), dross, dust, effluvium (also effluvia), junk, litter, offal, offscouring, raffle, refuse, riffraff, rubbish, scrap, spilth, trash, truck, wasteRelated Words crud, sewage, slop, swill, wash; detritus, remains, rubble, ruins; dump, scrap heap; lumber, odds and ends, trumpery; flotsam, jetsam, wreckage; castoff, cull, discard, hand-me-down, reject, throwaway; nothing, straw, two bitsNear Antonyms catch, gem, goody (or goodie), jewel, pearl, plum, prize, treasure, treasure trove, trove, valuable; booty, find, salvage