wastebasket

[ weyst-bas-kit, -bah-skit ]

/ ˈweɪstˌbæs kɪt, -ˌbɑ skɪt /

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR wastebasket ON THESAURUS.COM

noun

a standing basket for wastepaper, small items of trash, etc.

Nearby words

waste not, want not, waste one's breath, waste pipe, waste product, waste well, wastebasket, wasted, wasteful, wasteland, wastelot, wastepaper

Origin of wastebasket

First recorded in 1855–60; waste + basket

Also called wastepaper basket.

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for wastebasket

It will end up shriveled up, dried up, dead; rolled up in dirty gauze and tossed into a wastebasket, quickly forgotten.
No One Ever Loses to Cancer|Dushka Zapata|October 8, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Beard nodded, and without another word, Kenney flung the work into the wastebasket.
Doug Kenney: The Odd Comic Genius Behind ‘Animal House’ and National Lampoon|Robert Sam Anson|March 1, 2014|DAILY BEAST
What did you do—go through his wastebasket and find his pay stub?
The Supreme Court's Cluelessness on Gender Bias|Leslie Bennetts|June 22, 2011|DAILY BEAST
Well, ultimately, the screenplay is the only part of a movie that you can fit into a wastebasket.
The New Roger Ebert Takes Our Movie Quiz|Marlow Stern|January 19, 2011|DAILY BEAST

Not because he tried to use company money to purchase, among other items, a $1,400 wastebasket, but because he got caught.
Bank of America Smackdown!|Charlie Gasparino|April 28, 2009|DAILY BEAST
Let my brain go into the wastebasket for the sake of an hour or so of exhilaration?
The Million Dollar Mystery|Harold MacGrath
My advice is to throw this play in the wastebasket and write one about that man.
Bambi|Marjorie Benton Cooke
Chub often said, The first person to hit the wastebasket around here will be fired.
Joan of the Journal|Helen Diehl Olds
Anything like that I always take and I tear up and put in the wastebasket.
Warren Commission (7 of 26): Hearings Vol. VII (of 15)|The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy
Cannon left his fingerprints on it, dropped it into the wastebasket, and covered it with tissue paper.
Hail to the Chief|Gordon Randall Garrett

British Dictionary definitions for wastebasket

wastebasket

/ (ˈweɪstˌbɑːskɪt) /

noun

an open receptacle for paper and other dry litterAlso called (esp in Britain): wastepaper basket

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

wastebasket

noun

RELATED WORDS

Nearby words

Origin of wastebasket

Examples from the Web for wastebasket

British Dictionary definitions for wastebasket

wastebasket

noun