wastepaper basket
Britishnoun
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 accusation, based on a comparison of handwriting on a document found in the German's wastepaper basket in Paris, kicked off what would become known as the "Dreyfus affair".
From Barron's ● Nov. 18, 2025
New visitors found the sculpture—inspired by an Indian stepwell and sometimes likened to a wastepaper basket or a shawarma—encased in metal mesh, as if to keep out pigeons.
From Slate ● Jul. 30, 2025
Tossing a bottle of Vichy water into a wastepaper basket, he walks off into the night with Rick to join the anti-Vichy French forces of Gen. Charles de Gaulle.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 17, 2021
When I started off in journalism, I confess, I occasionally tossed letters from readers in the wastepaper basket.
From The New Yorker ● Dec. 15, 2015
I looked around for a container and found a plastic grocery-style bag lining the wastepaper basket.
From "Endangered" by Eliot Schrefer
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.
