trash

Pluraltrashes

Formstrashes, trashing, trashed

1. 1
   nounCanadaUScountable or uncountable

   Useless physical things meant to be thrown away; refuse.

   The crew collects household trash every Tuesday morning.

   Years of trash had piled up behind the abandoned factory.

   Similargarbage, rubbish, refuse, waste, junk

   Note

   The everyday word for household waste in Canada and the US, with roots on the forest floor: Middle English trasch, probably from Old Norse tros, "rubbish, fallen leaves and twigs." Where British English says rubbish, North Americans say trash, and refuse stays the formal word everywhere. Landor could write in 1828 that a haunch of venison "would be trash to a Brahmin": worthless to whoever would throw it out.

2. 2
   verbUStransitive

   To throw away or get rid of something as waste.

   She trashed the leftovers that had been sitting in the fridge for a week.

   We need to trash these expired coupons.

   Similardiscard, dump, toss, ditch, scrap

   Oppositekeep

   Note

   Casual and American, the verb suggests getting rid of something without ceremony. Its reach goes beyond the bin: InfoWorld warned in 1989 that unformatting would "trash any files" copied to a disk, and there discarding shades into destroying. In neutral or formal writing, throw away or discard does the same work.

3. 3
   nounfigurativelyCanadaUScountable or uncountable

   Something regarded as worthless or of very poor quality.

   Critics dismissed the novel as sentimental trash.

   The phone broke within a week; it turned out to be pure trash.

   Similarrubbish, garbage, junk, drivel

4. 4
   nounmetonymicallyCanadaUScountable or uncountable

   A receptacle for discarded items; a wastebasket or bin.

   She tossed the crumpled letter into the trash.

   Empty the trash before the kitchen starts to smell.

   Similarbin, trashcan, trashbin

   Note

   A metonym: the word for the contents stands in for what holds them, so a letter goes "into the trash" as naturally as into a bin. When the object itself needs naming, the compounds trash can and trash bin (also written trashcan, trashbin) are clearer. Garbage can, rubbish bin and plain bin name the same container.

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   To treat someone as worthless; to spurn, humiliate, or disrespect them.

   Pundits love to trash politicians they disagree with.

   They trashed her reputation with rumors they knew were false.

   Similarbash, slam, disparage, rubbish, denigrate

   Oppositepraise

   Note

   Here the attack is made with words: to trash someone is usually to run them down in public. Hadley Freeman, writing in The Guardian in 2018, calls it a British tradition for the press to celebrate a royal wedding "by trashing the incoming in-laws." The object is a person or a reputation, which keeps it apart from wrecking a place.

6. 6
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A temporary holding area on disk for deleted files, allowing them to be recovered if needed.

   Items in the trash stay recoverable until you empty it.

   She emptied the trash to free up storage space.

   Note

   A desktop metaphor that keeps deletion reversible. Deleting a file moves it here instead of erasing it, and the disk space is reclaimed only when the trash is emptied. Files are dragged or moved to the trash, and emptying it is the step that cannot be undone. Recycle bin names the same feature under another metaphor.

7. 7
   nounslangderogatoryCanadaUScountable or uncountable

   A derogatory term for people regarded as belonging to a low social class or status.

   The snobbish clerk treated every customer in worn clothes like trash.

   They dismissed the newcomers as trash unworthy of the neighborhood.

   Similarscum, riffraff, rabble

   Note

   A slur rather than a description: it judges a person's worth by their class, and it is sharply insulting. It turns up most often in compounds such as white trash and Eurotrash, and in the phrase treat someone like trash. Outside of quoting or discussing the term, it is safest avoided. Unlike the fandom's affectionate self-label, it lands as contempt even when meant as a joke.

8. 8
   verbUStransitive

   To turn something, especially a room or space, into a mess.

   The band trashed the hotel room after the concert.

   Toddlers can trash a tidy playroom in minutes.

   Similarwreck, vandalize, ruin, destroy

   Note

   Here nothing is thrown out; the place itself is reduced to rubbish. The object is usually a room or a house, and the culprits are burglars, vandals, or a band in a hotel suite. Context keeps it apart from the "throw away" verb: you trash a letter by binning it, but you trash a house by wrecking it.

9. 9
   verbUStransitive

   To defeat decisively in a game or competition.

   The home side trashed their rivals in the season opener.

   A well-drilled team can trash opponents who show up unprepared.

   Similarthrash, crush, trounce, rout, hammer

10. 10
    nouncountable or uncountable

    Boastful or untrue talk, especially insults or bragging aimed at an opponent.

    The boxer spouted endless trash at the weigh-in.

    Most of his trash turned out to be empty bragging.

    Similarrubbish, garbage

    Note

    Talk that is all swagger and little truth, the stuff of a rival's taunts. Today it lives mostly in the phrase talk trash and the compound trash-talk, both aimed at rattling an opponent. As a word for nonsense it sits beside garbage and rubbish. What sets it apart is the edge: trash here is the boast or the jab, not just the mistake.

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