trash

From Middle English trasch, trassh, probably a dialectal form of *trass (compare Orkney truss, English dialectal trous), from Old Norse tros (“rubbish, fallen leaves and twigs”). Compare Norwegian trask (“lumber, trash, baggage”), Swedish trasa (“rag, cloth, worthless fellow”), Swedish trås (“dry fallen twigs, wood-waste”). Compare also Old English þreahs, þreax (“rottenness, rubbish”).

• enPR: trăsh, IPA^(key): /tɹæʃ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æʃ

trash (countable and uncountable, plural trashes)

1. (chiefly US) Useless things to be discarded; rubbish; refuse.
   • Landor

     A haunch of venison would be trash to a Brahmin.

2. A container into which things are discarded.
3. Something worthless or of poor quality.
4. (slang, derogatory) People of low social status or class. (See, for example, white trash or Eurotrash.)
5. (fandom slang, humorous, uncountable) A fan who is excessively obsessed with their fandom and its fanworks.

   I am Harry Potter trash.

6. (computing) Temporary storage on disk for files that the user has deleted, allowing them to be recovered if necessary.
7. A collar, leash, or halter used to restrain a dog in pursuing game.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Markham to this entry?)

• garbage (1-3), junk (1,3), refuse (1), rubbish, waste
• (container): trash can
• (storage for deleted files): recycle bin
• See also Thesaurus:trash

trash (third-person singular simple present trashes, present participle trashing, simple past and past participle trashed)

1. (US) To discard.
   • 1989, InfoWorld (18 December 1989, page 66)

     Fatcat also fails to warn you that unformatting will trash any files copied to the unintentionally formatted disk.

2. (US) To make into a mess.

   The burglars trashed the house.

3. (US) To beat soundly in a game.
4. (US) To disrespect someone or something
   • 20 May 2018, Hadley Freeman in The Guardian, Is Meghan Markle the American the royals have needed all along?

     It is a British tradition for the media to celebrate an upcoming royal wedding by trashing the incoming in-laws, from Diana’s stepmother, Raine Spencer, to Kate Middleton’s Uncle Gary and his memorably named Ibizan villa, Maison de Bang Bang.

5. To free from trash, or worthless matter; hence, to lop; to crop.

   to trash the rattoons of sugar cane

   (Can we find and add a quotation of B. Edwards to this entry?)

6. To treat as trash, or worthless matter; hence, to spurn, humiliate, or crush.
7. To hold back by a trash or leash, as a dog in pursuing game; hence, to retard, encumber, or restrain; to clog; to hinder vexatiously.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Beaumont and Fletcher to this entry?)

• See also Thesaurus:junk

• trash out

recycle bin

• Arths, HARTs, Stahr, harts, raths, shart, tahrs, thars

trash

1. Alternative form of trasch