Rubbish Meaning
/ˈɹʌbɪʃ/Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
nounRefuse, waste, garbage, junk, trash.
nounAn item, or items, of low quality.
Sentence Examples
"What shall we do with the rubbish, Mr Wood?" asked Pip.
Get the rubbish out of the building.
They looked at the rubbish, then they looked at each other.
CEFR Practice Quiz
Please take out the ____ it is full of old papers and food scraps.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
He threw the empty packaging into the ____ bin at the end of the street.
Word Origin & History
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”). Compare Swedish rubba (“to move, displace, dislodge, upset”). The verb is derived from the noun.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"What traſh is Rome? / What Rubbiſh and what Offall? when it ſerues / For the baſe matter, to illuminate / So vile a thing as Cæsar."
— 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii], page 113:
"[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."
— [1747?] January 3, “[Literary Memoirs.] An Account of English Ants. By the Rev. William Gould, A.M. of Exeter-College, Oxon. London, printed for A[ndrew] Millar, 1747, 12mo. Pages 109, besides Preface and Dedication.”, in [Mark Akenside], editor, The Museum: Or, The Literary and Historical Register, volume II, number XXI, London: Printed for R[obert] Dodsley […], published 1746 (indicated on title page), →OCLC, page 272:
"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."
— 1851 July 19, “The Value of Rubbish [from Chambers’ Journal]”, in E[liakim] Littell, editor, Littel’s Living Age, volume XXX, number CCCLXXIV, Boston, Mass.: Published by E. Littel & Company; Philadelphia, Pa.: Getz & Buck, […]; New York, N.Y.: Dewitt & Davenport, […], →OCLC, chapter XXII, page 125, column 2:
"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."
— 1862 July, “Buchanan v. The Town of Galt”, in W[illiam] D[avis] Ardagh, Robert A[lexander] Harrison, editors, The Upper Canada Law Journal and Municipal and Local Courts’ Gazette, volume VII, Toronto, Ont.: Printed and published […] by W. C. Chewett & Co., →OCLC, page 182, column 1:
"Simply because as Taciturn pretells, our wrongstoryshortener, he dumptied the wholeborrow of rubbages on to soil here."
— [1939 May 4, James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, London: Faber and Faber Limited, →OCLC; republished London: Faber & Faber Limited, 1960, →OCLC, part I, page 17:
Explore More B1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
Please take out the ____ it is full of old papers and food scraps.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
He threw the empty packaging into the ____ bin at the end of the street.