garbageman

American  

[gahr-bij-man] / ˈgɑr bɪdʒˌmæn /

noun

garbagemen plural

1. a person employed to collect, haul away, and dispose of garbage; sanitation worker.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• garbagemen
  plural

Etymology

Origin of garbageman

An Americanism dating back to 1885–90; garbage + man

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

garbageman garbagemen

In his 20 years as a garbageman in Montreal, Mr. Paré-Poupart, now 41, has hauled some 70,000 tons of trash.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026

Not only does he star as a garbageman who goes by the moniker Clean, but he also produced the film, composed the score and contributed original music.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 27, 2022

And Thomas Moline, a white retired garbageman in Minneapolis, said he simply hadn’t trusted her.

From New York Times ● Oct. 18, 2020

But then Sayyid, the garbageman in our old neighborhood, reported that Hany was telling a story about how he had helped find the stolen bags.

From The New Yorker ● Mar. 25, 2019

“When I found out I couldn’t be a garbageman, I settled for being a movie star, but it was definitely second-best.”

From "Fallen Angels" by Walter Dean Myers

You won’t find too many garbagemen who age well.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026

“I kind of think about them as the little garbagemen of the forest,” Marek said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 13, 2023

In the course of his investigation, the commissario interviews one of the garbagemen, or spazzini, from whom he gleans a damning piece of evidence.

From New York Times ● Mar. 24, 2021

She wondered whether garbagemen went around telling people that everything was waste, which would’ve been, to her mind, closer to the truth than anything else she’d heard.

From The New Yorker ● May 13, 2019

A dismal assignment, I thought: garbagemen to the inmates.

From "Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing" by Ted Conover