garbage

American  

[gahr-bij] / ˈgɑr bɪdʒ /

noun

1. discarded animal and vegetable matter, as from a kitchen; refuse.

2. any matter that is no longer wanted or needed; trash.

3. a bin or other receptacle for discarded matter, especially kitchen waste; garbage can.

   Hey, who threw my leftover pizza in the garbage?

   Synonyms:

   taradiddle, malarkey, hogwash, claptrap, bunkum, nonsense, waste, trash, rubbish, junk, refuse, litter

4. anything that is contemptibly worthless, inferior, or vile.

   There's nothing but garbage on TV tonight.

5. worthless talk; lies; foolishness.

6. Informal. any unnecessary item added to something else, as for appearance only; garnish.

   I'll have an Old Fashioned, but without the garbage.

7. useless artificial satellites or parts of rockets floating in space, as satellites that are no longer transmitting information or rocket boosters jettisoned in flight.

8. Computers. meaningless or unwanted data.

   That program was not properly debugged and produced nothing but garbage.

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garbage British  

/ ˈɡɑːbɪdʒ /

noun

1. worthless, useless, or unwanted matter

2. Also called: rubbish.  discarded or waste matter; refuse

3. computing invalid data

4. informal nonsense

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Etymology

Origin of garbage

First recorded in 1400–50; Middle English garbage, gabage “discarded parts of butchered fowls; entrails of fowls used for human food”; compare with Middle English garbelage “removal of refuse from spices,” Middle English garbelure “refuse found in spices,” and Old French garbage (also jarbage ) “tax on sheaves of grain,” but the shift of sense here is unclear; further origin uncertain; see also garble, -age

Explanation

If you throw it in the trash, you can call it garbage. Likewise, if something is so terrible you wish you could throw it in the trash, like a really bad movie, you can also call it garbage. Everything in your kitchen trash is garbage — essentially, it's anything that's useless. Garbage can include vegetable scraps, wadded-up paper, or even spoken gibberish. The origin of the word garbage is a little uncertain, though in the 15th century it was used to mean literally "giblets of a fowl," or the extra parts that weren't considered food.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

garbage

The old and young rummage through garbage bins searching for something to eat.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026

One mutual-fund manager’s reaction: “If people start believing this random-walk garbage and switch to index funds, a lot of $80,000-a-year portfolio managers and analysts will be replaced by $16,000-a-year computer clerks. It just can’t happen.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026

For more than a year, an uncontrolled fire had burned in the bowels of the dump, broiling old garbage and sending nauseating fumes into nearby homes.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 12, 2026

Justin Gignac, an artist in New York City, collected garbage outside Madison Square Garden on the day of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's wedding.

From BBC ● Jul. 9, 2026

School just ended, so I’m riding over to the park now, have a garbage bag all ready for any stranded cans, but there’s nothing.

From "Wayward Creatures" by Dayna Lorentz