wastebasket

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

/ ˈweɪstˌbæs kɪt, -ˌbɑ skɪt /

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noun

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

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Also called wastepaper basket.

Origin of wastebasket

First recorded in 1855–60; waste + basket

Words nearby wastebasket

wassup, wast, wastage, waste, waste away, wastebasket, wasted, waste disposal unit, wasteful, waste gate, waste heat recovery

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use wastebasket in a sentence

They also offer office accessories such as crocodile desk sets, wastebaskets and storage boxes.
Leather and lace in your home decor|Valerie Blake|January 15, 2022|Washington Blade
Empty the pan into the fire, which is safer than dumping stray embers into a wastebasket or vacuuming them up, where they could set a bag of collected dust on fire.
Here are 9 home maintenance tasks for your November to-do list|Jeanne Huber|October 29, 2021|Washington Post
The small, easily stored, no-basket design fits most wastebaskets.
Best paper shredder to cut down sensitive papers|Stacey L. Nash|October 13, 2021|Popular-Science
While the wastebasket fills quickly, it is easy to empty and pulls completely out of the shredder.
Best paper shredder to cut down sensitive papers|Stacey L. Nash|October 13, 2021|Popular-Science

A safety mechanism turns off the machine if the head is removed from the wastebasket, keeping hands and fingers safe.
Best paper shredder to cut down sensitive papers|Stacey L. Nash|October 13, 2021|Popular-Science
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
I even remember throwing the pieces into the round wooden wastebasket in our living room.
William F. Buckley's Flip-Flop|Richard Brookhiser|July 9, 2009|DAILY BEAST
I finished cleaning out my desk and took a wastebasket full of papers to the back shop.
Nine Men in Time|Noel Miller Loomis
Bassett winnowed these carefully, brushing the chaff into his wastebasket and retaining a few kernels for later use.
A Hoosier Chronicle|Meredith Nicholson
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
Hall went through the wastebasket, the clothes hanging in the closet, every drawer in the bureau.
The Five Arrows|Allan Chase
She tossed a slip into the wastebasket beside her and glanced at the next slip.
Uller Uprising|Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr

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

Origin of wastebasket

Words nearby wastebasket

Words related to wastebasket

How to use wastebasket in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for wastebasket