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Synonyms

ashcan

American  
[ash-kan] / ˈæʃˌkæn /

noun

  1. a large metal barrel, can, or similar receptacle for ashes, garbage, or refuse.

  2. Slang. a depth charge.

  3. Movies. an arc light of 1000 watts, enclosed in a reflector.


Etymology

Origin of ashcan

First recorded in 1895–1900; ash 1 + can 2

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

It was swept up and dropped in an ashcan and there the eldest of the Martins' four children, a lively, questing, eleven-year-old named Shirley Anne, found it.

From Time Magazine Archive

While the newspaper-trained illustrators who became the ashcan school saw ugliness as a police court scene, their friend.

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)