Etymology
Origin of ashcan
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The 1940s sundered the 20th century, dispatching an entire global framework and any number of abiding social orders to the ashcan of history.
From The Guardian • Mar. 28, 2018
Even the ashcan colors and chiaroscuro lighting brighten.
From New York Times • Nov. 8, 2011
Bette never lets it go into circulation without warning the borrower of its deleterious effects, but she is disturbed when the city council tells her to put it in the ashcan.
From Time Magazine Archive
Said he: "Today's scoop is in tomorrow's ashcan, but a job done for public betterment lives long."
From Time Magazine Archive
If your mood is unusually Bostonian when you receive this letter, you will very likely hurl the fragments of it into an ashcan omitted from the map of the brown building on Deerfield Street.
From White Ashes by Kennedy, Sidney R. (Sidney Robinson)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
