| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| trash |
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| PRONUNCIATION: |  tr sh |
| NOUN: | 1a. Worthless or discarded material or objects; refuse or rubbish. b. Something broken off or removed to be discarded, especially plant trimmings. c. The refuse of sugar cane after extraction of the juice. 2. A place or receptacle where rubbish is discarded: threw the wrapper in the trash. 3a. Empty words or ideas. b. Worthless or offensive literary or artistic material. c. Disparaging, often abusive speech about a person or group. 4. A person or group of people regarded as worthless or contemptible. | | TRANSITIVE VERB: | Inflected forms: trashed, trash·ing, trash·es
1. Slang a. To throw away; discard: trashed the broken toaster. b. To wreck or destroy by or as if by vandalism; reduce to trash or ruins. c. To beat up; assault. d. To subject to scathing criticism or abuse; attack verbally: “The … professor trashes conservative … proposals as well as liberal nostrums” (Michael Marien). 2a. To remove twigs or branches from. b. To cut off the outer leaves of (growing sugar cane). | | ETYMOLOGY: | Probably of Scandinavian origin; akin to Norwegian dialectal trask.
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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