rubbish
Meanings
- Refuse, waste, garbage, junk, trash.
- An item, or items, of low quality.
- Nonsense.
- Debris or ruins of buildings; rubble.
- Exceedingly bad; awful.
- Used to express that something is exceedingly bad, awful, or terrible.
- Used to express that what was recently said is nonsense or untrue; balderdash!, nonsense!
- To criticize, to denigrate, to denounce, to disparage.
- To litter.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English robous (“rubbish, building rubble”), further origin uncertain; possibly from Anglo-Norman rubous, rubouse, rubbouse (“refuse, waste material; building rubble”), and compare Anglo-Latin rebbussa, robousa, robusium, robusum, rubisum, rubusa, rubusium (although the Anglo-Norman and Anglo-Latin words may be derived from the English word instead of the other way around, as there are no known Old French cognates of the word). The English word may be related to rubble, though the connection is unclear. Possibly derived ultimately from Old Norse rubba (“to huddle, crowd together, heap up", also possibly "to rub, scrape”), from Proto-Germanic *rubbōną (“to rub, scrape”). Compare Swedish rubba (“to move, displace, dislodge, upset”). The verb is derived from the noun.