Meaning of Rubbish | Babel Free

Definitions

1. Refuse, waste, garbage, junk, trash.
   Commonwealth, uncountable, usually
2. An item, or items, of low quality.
   Commonwealth, broadly, uncountable, usually
3. Nonsense.
   Commonwealth, broadly, uncountable, usually
4. Debris or ruins of buildings; rubble.
   archaic, uncountable, usually

Equivalents

Examples

“The rubbish is collected every Thursday in Gloucester, but on Wednesdays in Cheltenham.”

“What traſh is Rome? / What Rubbiſh and what Offall? when it ſerues / For the baſe matter, to illuminate / So vile a thing as Cæsar.”

Rome is trash, rubbish and offal when it serves as inferior matter that is burned to illuminate so vile a thing as Caesar.

“[T]he Employments of the common Ants or Workers […] are partly the Management of the Young, and the Building their little Hills of Straw, Rubbiſh, and Particles of Earth, mixed with Blades of Graſs, into little Mounds or Ramparts, on which to expoſe the Eggs and Nymphs to the Sun-beams; their other great Employment is, in collecting Proviſions.”

“In the course of this operation [the copper-fastening of new, or the re-coppering of old, vessels], and more especially in a repair of this latter description, old copper nails, stray pieces of bold and sheet copper, with other parings of a similar nature, are lost among the chips, or in the bottom of the dock. These chips are sold at an almost nominal price, as rubbish, to the smelters, who cart them away often in large quantities, burn the chips out, then wash and smelt the remainder, if necessary, in the ordinary manner.”

“The plaintiff claimed damages from the defendants for a breach of duty in allowing and permitting dirt and rubbish to be thrown or put upon a lane or public highway upon which his premises abutted. It appeared in evidence that the damage complained of was occasioned by the filling in and levelling a hollow in the lane, by means whereof the plaintiff's fence was pressed inwards, the filling in being done by private individuals throwing dirt and rubbish thereon.”

“Simply because as Taciturn pretells, our wrongstoryshortener, he dumptied the wholeborrow of rubbages on to soil here.”

“[…] I was sleeping with my head on the wooden arm of a seat as six attendants of the theater converged with their night's total of swept-up rubbish and created a huge dusty pile that reached to my nose as I snored head down—till they almost swept me away too. […] Had they taken me with it, Dean would have never seen me again. He would have had to roam the entire United States and look in every garbage pail from coast to coast before he found me embryonically convoluted among the rubbishes of my life, his life, and the life of everybody concerned and not concerned.”

“Goats are adventurous eaters. They nose around in rubbish looking for scraps of food.”

“Much of what they sell is rubbish.”

“[W]e may add that publications of this nature always contain much rubbiſh to make up the bulk; for to produce a neat collection of true wit, requires talents and judgment that would ſcarcely ſtoop to the taſk.”

“"And ain't you had nothing but that kind of rubbage to eat?" / "No, sah—nuffn' else."”

“Everything the teacher said during that lesson was rubbish. How can she possibly think that a bass viol and a cello are the same thing?”

“I ſhall […] lay out of my way the whole bede-roll of citations and precedents which they have produced, that heterogeneous heap of rubbiſh, which is only calculated to confound your Lordſhips, and miſlead the argument.”

“"Essays about what?" / "Oh—rubbish mostly." / There was a moment's pause. / "Oh, Lovat, don't be so silly. You know you don't think your essays rubbish," put in Harriet. "They're about life, and democracy, and equality, and all that sort of thing," Harriet explained.”

“But just now she felt that there was something flippant and unseemly in talking such fantastic rubbish: dreams seemed out of place when reality was so heartbreaking.”

“That Antichriſt is a man exerciſing a kingdome, the head of the vniuerſall Apoſtaſie, […] the Romane monarchie being diuided and fallen downe, out of the rubbiſhes whereof, he is by litle & litle riſen & increaſed, thorow the power and forcible working of Sathan, […]”

“E'er since poor Cheapside cross in rubbage lay, […]”

“At length th' Almighty caſt a pitying eye, / And mercy ſoftly touch'd his melting breaſt: / He ſaw the town's one half in rubbiſh lie, / And eager flames give on to ſtorm the reſt.”

“See, from afar, yon Rock that mates the Sky, / About whoſe Feet ſuch Heaps of Rubbiſh lye: / Such indigeſted Ruin; bleak and bare, / How deſart now it ſtands, expos'd in Air!”

“Nothing remains of Utica, excepting a heap of rubbiſh and ſmall ſtones: but the trenches and approaches of the ancient beſiegers are ſtill very perfect.”

CEFR level