wastebasket
Americannoun
-
wastebaskets
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of wastebasket
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.
See Examples For:
The wastebasket at the Andaz Lisbon was so small I seriously thought it was an umbrella holder.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
Do it once, but make sure to sit beside a wastebasket.
From Salon ● Oct. 4, 2025
These commitments are important, as they give Kennedy something to wad up and christen his wastebasket with when he steps into his new office.
From Slate ● Feb. 8, 2025
This trend should be in the same wastebasket as mullets, microwave dinners and inflated lips.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 6, 2024
In a metal-wire wastebasket was a basketball and a football and a baseball mitt still cradling a stained and scruffed-up ball.
From "The Great Gilly Hopkins" by Katherine Paterson
As a housemate, he was catastrophic—overturning wastebaskets, ransacking drawers and drenching manuscripts.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 23, 2026
When that happens, residents are forced to defecate in wastebaskets in their rooms and then, he said, take “the walk of shame” to deposit their feces in hallway trash rooms.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 16, 2023
She herself had emptied the wastebaskets as a little girl.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 5, 2022
Rainwater often fell through the roof of the Mercury building, forcing employees to use buckets, wastebaskets and even a potted plant to catch the drips.
From New York Times ● Jul. 10, 2020
Boarders emptied wastebaskets and picked up scraps of sewing in preparation for a quick flight to the secret room.
From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom
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.
