rubbish

CEFRB1

/ˈɹʌbɪʃ/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    Waste material that people throw away.

  2. 02

    noun

    Something considered silly, useless, or untrue.

Examples

  • "What shall we do with the rubbish, Mr Wood?" asked Pip.

  • Get the rubbish out of the building.

At a glance

Sits at B1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5
Synonyms
5

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. An item, or items, of low quality.

  2. Refuse, waste, garbage, junk, trash.

  3. Debris or ruins of buildings; rubble.

More examples

In context

  • They looked at the rubbish, then they looked at each other.

  • Much of what they sell is rubbish.

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

Synonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

Please take out the blank it is full of old papers and food scraps.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

Inherited from Middle English robous (“rubbish, building rubble”), further origin uncertain; possibly from Anglo-Norman rubous, rubouse, rubbouse (“refuse, waste material; building rubble”), and compare Anglo-Latin rebbussa, robousa, robusium, robusum, rubisum, rubusa, rubusium (although the Anglo-Norman and Anglo-Latin words may be derived from the English word instead of the other way around, as there are no known Old French cognates of the word). The English word may be related to rubble, though the connection is unclear. Possibly derived ultimately from Old Norse rubba (“to huddle, crowd together, heap up", also possibly "to rub, scrape”), from Proto-Germanic *rubbōną (“to rub, scrape”)...