garbage

English Online Dictionary. What means garbage‎? What does garbage mean?

English

Alternative forms

• garbidge (obsolete or eye dialect)

Etymology

From late Middle English garbage (“the offal of a fowl, giblets, kitchen waste”, originally “refuse, what is purged away”), from Anglo-Norman, from Old French garber (“to refine, make neat or clean”), of Germanic origin, from Frankish *garwijan (“to make ready”).

Akin to Old High German garawan (“to prepare, make ready”), Old English ġearwian (“to make ready, adorn”). More at garb, yare, gear

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɡɑːbɪd͡ʒ/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɡɑɹbɪd͡ʒ/
• Hyphenation: gar‧bage

Noun

garbage (uncountable) (chiefly US, Canada, Australia)

1. Food waste material of any kind.
2. (England, dialectal, Cumbria, Lancashire, archaic) foul, rotten or unripe vegetable matter.
3. Useless or disposable material; waste material of any kind.

4. A place or receptacle for waste material.

5. Nonsense; gibberish.

6. Something or someone worthless.
7. (obsolete) The bowels of an animal; refuse parts of flesh; offal.
8. (sports, slang, Canada, US, attributive) An easy shot.

Synonyms

• junk, refuse, rubbish, trash, waste
• See also Thesaurus:trash

Antonyms

• artifact, asset, catch, find, prize, recyclable, resource, treasure, valuable

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

garbage (third-person singular simple present garbages, present participle garbaging, simple past and past participle garbaged)

1. (transitive, chiefly US, Canada, obsolete) to eviscerate
   • 1674, John Josselyn, Two Voyages to New England, Made During the Years 1638-63 (quoted in William Butts Mershon, The Passenger Pigeon, 1907, The Outing Publishing Company):

     I have bought at Boston a dozen Pidgeons ready pulled and garbidged for three pence.

   Synonyms: disembowel, eviscerate, gut

Adjective

garbage (not comparable)

1. (informal) bad, crap, shitty

See also

• garbage on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Middle English

Alternative forms

• gabage

Etymology

From a derivative of Old French garber.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡarˈbaːd͡ʒ(ə)/

Noun

garbage (plural garbagys) (Late Middle English)

1. bird dung
2. entrails, offal

Descendants

• English: garbage
• Yola: graabache, graapish (influenced by garbage)

References

• “garbāǧe, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.