"wastebasket" meaning in English

See wastebasket in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: wastebaskets [plural]
Etymology: waste + basket Etymology templates: {{compound|en|waste|basket}} waste + basket Head templates: {{en-noun}} wastebasket (plural wastebaskets)
  1. A usually small indoor receptacle for items that are to be discarded; a rubbish bin. Categories (topical): Containers
    Sense id: en-wastebasket-en-noun-2ZOE1Cx~ Disambiguation of Containers: 63 19 19 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with topic categories using raw markup Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 58 23 19 Disambiguation of English entries with topic categories using raw markup: 47 27 27
  2. (figurative, by extension) Any region or grouping that is worthless or meaningless. Tags: broadly, figuratively
    Sense id: en-wastebasket-en-noun-9qrw844D
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Derived forms: wastebasket taxon

Verb

Forms: wastebaskets [present, singular, third-person], wastebasketing [participle, present], wastebasketed [participle, past], wastebasketed [past]
Etymology: waste + basket Etymology templates: {{compound|en|waste|basket}} waste + basket Head templates: {{en-verb}} wastebasket (third-person singular simple present wastebaskets, present participle wastebasketing, simple past and past participle wastebasketed)
  1. (transitive) To discard in a wastebasket. Tags: transitive Related terms: wastepaper basket
    Sense id: en-wastebasket-en-verb-2mHQirue

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for wastebasket meaning in English (3.4kB)

{
  "derived": [
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "wastebasket taxon"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "waste",
        "3": "basket"
      },
      "expansion": "waste + basket",
      "name": "compound"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "waste + basket",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "wastebaskets",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "wastebasket (plural wastebaskets)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "58 23 19",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "47 27 27",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with topic categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "63 19 19",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Containers",
          "orig": "en:Containers",
          "parents": [
            "Tools",
            "Technology",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A usually small indoor receptacle for items that are to be discarded; a rubbish bin."
      ],
      "id": "en-wastebasket-en-noun-2ZOE1Cx~",
      "links": [
        [
          "indoor",
          "indoor"
        ],
        [
          "receptacle",
          "receptacle"
        ],
        [
          "discard",
          "discard"
        ],
        [
          "rubbish bin",
          "rubbish bin"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2017, Russell Tuttle, The Functional and Evolutionary Biology of Primates, page 122",
          "text": "The order Insectivora provides such a taxonomic wastebasket in classifications of the placental mammals.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2008, Harald Burger, Dmitrij Dobrovol'skij, Peter Kühn, Phraseologie / Phraseology, volume 2, page 819",
          "text": "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” […]",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Any region or grouping that is worthless or meaningless."
      ],
      "id": "en-wastebasket-en-noun-9qrw844D",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figurative, by extension) Any region or grouping that is worthless or meaningless."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "broadly",
        "figuratively"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "wastebasket"
}

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "waste",
        "3": "basket"
      },
      "expansion": "waste + basket",
      "name": "compound"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "waste + basket",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "wastebaskets",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "wastebasketing",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "wastebasketed",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "wastebasketed",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "wastebasket (third-person singular simple present wastebaskets, present participle wastebasketing, simple past and past participle wastebasketed)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "ante 1924 (posthumous, died 1910): Mark Twain, Autobiography\nI 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."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To discard in a wastebasket."
      ],
      "id": "en-wastebasket-en-verb-2mHQirue",
      "links": [
        [
          "discard",
          "discard"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(transitive) To discard in a wastebasket."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "wastepaper basket"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "transitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "wastebasket"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English compound terms",
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
    "English lemmas",
    "English nouns",
    "English verbs",
    "en:Containers"
  ],
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "wastebasket taxon"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "waste",
        "3": "basket"
      },
      "expansion": "waste + basket",
      "name": "compound"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "waste + basket",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "wastebaskets",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "wastebasket (plural wastebaskets)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "A usually small indoor receptacle for items that are to be discarded; a rubbish bin."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "indoor",
          "indoor"
        ],
        [
          "receptacle",
          "receptacle"
        ],
        [
          "discard",
          "discard"
        ],
        [
          "rubbish bin",
          "rubbish bin"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2017, Russell Tuttle, The Functional and Evolutionary Biology of Primates, page 122",
          "text": "The order Insectivora provides such a taxonomic wastebasket in classifications of the placental mammals.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2008, Harald Burger, Dmitrij Dobrovol'skij, Peter Kühn, Phraseologie / Phraseology, volume 2, page 819",
          "text": "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” […]",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Any region or grouping that is worthless or meaningless."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figurative, by extension) Any region or grouping that is worthless or meaningless."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "broadly",
        "figuratively"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "wastebasket"
}

{
  "categories": [
    "English compound terms",
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
    "English lemmas",
    "English nouns",
    "English verbs",
    "en:Containers"
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "waste",
        "3": "basket"
      },
      "expansion": "waste + basket",
      "name": "compound"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "waste + basket",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "wastebaskets",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "wastebasketing",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "wastebasketed",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "wastebasketed",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "wastebasket (third-person singular simple present wastebaskets, present participle wastebasketing, simple past and past participle wastebasketed)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "wastepaper basket"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English transitive verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "ante 1924 (posthumous, died 1910): Mark Twain, Autobiography\nI 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."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To discard in a wastebasket."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "discard",
          "discard"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(transitive) To discard in a wastebasket."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "transitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "wastebasket"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.