EN

Synonyms for rubbish

45 synonyms
5 antonyms
6 meanings

noun
adjective

Most common

stuff and nonsense junk dross twaddle refuse litter ort

Synonyms by meaning

Noun

1. Trash — nonsense

trash US CA, garbage US AU CA, dross, stuff and nonsense, twaddle, junk, drivel, non-sense, dregs, guff, hogwash, piffle, scum, malarkey informal UK US IE, balderdash, tripe UK, dirt, poppycock informal, gibberish, gobbledygook informal US, gobbledegook UK, offal, hokum

2. Waste — refuse, waste, garbage, junk, trash

waste, litter, refuse, scrap, sweepings, pelf dated

3. Crapola — an item, or items, of low quality

hunk of junk informal UK US, slop, crapola slang

4. Debris — debris or ruins of buildings; rubble

debris, detritus, rubble, remains

Other

Adjective

1. Shoddy

shoddy, terrible, horrendous, abysmal, shitty vulgar slang, crappy vulgar informal US CA

2. Fifth-rate

fifth-rate, fourth-rate, sixth-rate

Antonyms

grouse, fireball, positive

All antonyms of rubbish →

Definitions

n. 1
Refuse, waste, garbage, junk, trash.
The rubbish is collected every Thursday in Gloucester, but on Wednesdays in Cheltenham.
n. 2
An item, or items, of low quality.
Much of what they sell is utter rubbish.
n. 3
Nonsense.
Everything the teacher said during that lesson was rubbish. How can she possibly think that a bass viol and a cello are the same thing?
adj. 1
Exceedingly bad; awful.
This has been a rubbish day, and it’s about to get worse: my mother-in-law is coming to stay.

Related words

Word family: rubbishly rubbishy rubble
Phrases: rubbish dump rubbish bag rubbish bin rubbish pulley rubbish tip

Forms

Plural: rubbishes → trashes, drosses, twaddles, junks…

Example sentences

junk There's nothing in here but a lot of useless junk.
dross Even the best authors can write dross.
twaddle Personally, I think it's a load of twaddle.
refuse I didn't really think Tom would refuse to do that.
litter The she-cat gave birth to a litter of six kittens.

Popularity over time

Word	1850 → 2019	Trend
rubbish		rising
junk		rising
dross		steady
twaddle		steady
refuse		steady

Use in printed books, per decade from 1850 to 2019.

By length

3 letters: ort¹
4 letters: dirt¹, junk¹, scum¹, slop¹, guff¹, pelf
5 letters: waste¹, trash¹, scrap¹, tripe¹, dregs¹, offal, dross¹, hokum²
6 letters: refuse², shitty², debris², litter², crappy², rubble², shoddy², drivel², piffle
7 letters: remains², garbage², abysmal³, hogwash², twaddle², crapola
8 letters: terrible³, detritus³, malarkey³
9 letters: gibberish³, poppycock³, sweepings
10 letters: horrendous³, balderdash³
12 letters: gobbledygook⁴, gobbledegook

The small number after each word is its number of syllables (hokum² = 2 syllables).

In other languages

Français: inepties