littering

Plurallitterings

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of dropping trash or waste in public places instead of disposing of it properly.

   Like tossing your garbage out a car window instead of finding a trash can.

   Littering along the highway has become a serious problem for local cleanup crews.

   The new ordinance imposes steep fines for littering in public parks.

   Similardumping

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of litter.

   Tourists are littering the trail with empty water bottles.

   Crowds were littering the square with flyers long after the rally ended.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every meaning of the verb, not only the trash one. Used intransitively, it names the careless act itself (caught littering). Used transitively, it takes the place or the scattered things as its object (littering the trail with bottles). It also keeps the animal sense of producing a litter of young, and the stable sense of spreading bedding for cattle. When it names the act alone, it overlaps with the noun for dropping trash.

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