wastebasket
noun
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L330315 on Wikidata ↗Wiktionary
noun
Etymology: From waste + basket.
- A usually small indoor receptacle for items that are to be discarded; a rubbish bin.
- Any region or grouping that is worthless or meaningless.
“The order Insectivora provides such a taxonomic wastebasket in classifications of the placental mammals.”
“For these reasons, the study of idioms, proverbs, stock metaphors, and other conversational gambits has been mostly discouraged, and at best relegated to research in pragmatics, or the “linguistic wastebasket” […]”
verb
Etymology: From waste + basket.
- To discard in a wastebasket.
“I was aweary, aweary, and I put it in the waste basket. Ten days later the bill came again, and with it a shadowy threat. I waste-basketed it.”