▪ I. garbage, n.
(ˈgɑːbɪdʒ)
Forms: 6–8 garbidge, -ish(e, (6 garbadge, -edge, garvage), 5– garbage.
[Of obscure origin; prob. adopted from AF., like many other words found in early cookery books. Derivation from OF. garbe sheaf is probable for sense 4, and possible for the other senses.]
1. The offal of an animal used for food; esp. the entrails. Rarely, the entrails of a man.
| c 1430 Two Cookery bks. i. 9 Take fayre garbagys of chykonys, as þe hed, þe fete, þe lyuerys, an þe gysowrys. 1530 Palsgr. 224/1 Garbage of a foule, petitoye. 1573–80 Baret Alv. B. 1071 To pulle out the garbishe or guttes of a thing. 1638 Ford Fancies iv. i, Rotten in thy maw, thy guts and garbage! 1664 Butler Hud. ii. iii. 31 Augury, That out of Garbages of Cattel Presag'd th' events of Truce or Battel. 1682 Weekly Mem. 255 The blood, bowels, and the other garbish are taken out. 1707 Mortimer Husb. 86 In New-found-land they improve their Ground with the Garbish of Fish. 1728 R. North Mem. Musick (1846) 60 These people made no scruple of handling gutts and garbages. 1843 Borrow Bible in Spain 322 The carrion vulture..disputing with the brutes the garbage. |
2. Refuse in general; filth.
† Also used for
garble n.1| 1583 Stanyhurst æneis iii. (Arb.) 77 With ramd cramd garbadge, theire gorges draftye be gulled. 1615 G. Sandys Trav. 240 This fountaine was said to grow thicke, and sauour of garbidge, at such time as they celebrated the Olympiads. 1625 Purchas Pilgrims ii. 1783 Cloues..whensoeuer they are made cleane, and seperated from their garbish. 1776 Adam Smith W. N. i. viii. (1869) I. 75 They [the Chinese] are eager to fish up the nastiest garbage thrown overboard. 1887 Spectator 9 July 621/1 The river was the receptacle of the garbage and sewage of these domiciles. |
3. fig. Chiefly in the sense of worthless or foul literary matter.
| 1592 Nashe P. Penilesse (ed. 2) 39 a, Let not your shops be infected with anie such..stinking garbadge. 1606 Day Ile of Guls i. i. (1881) 11 Almes-basket-scraps, the very fall and garbidge of gentry. 1759 Grainger tr. Sulpicia's Poems ix. 6 Rare Taste, and worthy of a Poet's Brain, To prey on Garbage. 1803 J. Porter Thaddeus xxii. (1831) 194 She flew with voracious appetite to sate herself on the garbage of any circulating library. 1812 D'Israeli Calam. Auth. (1867) 135 The public appetite..afterwards indignantly rejected the palatable garbage. 1882 M. E. Braddon Mt. Royal III. vi. 124 Any garbage is food for a woman's vanity. |
† 4. (See
quots.)
Obs. [
cf. dial. F.
gerbée,
garbée used in a similar sense (see Godefroy
s.v.).]
| 1526 Househ. Ord. (1790) 206 All such horses..to be substantially served according to their allowance..in Hay, Garbage, and Litter. 1617 Markham Caval. i. 6 That which Horsemen call garbadge, which is wheate strawe and the eares, chopt small together. 1887 Kent Gloss., Garbage, a sheaf of corn, Latin garba; a cock of hay; a fagot of wood, or any other bundle of the..fruits of the earth. |
5. attrib. and
Comb., as
garbage-barrel,
garbage-box,
garbage can,
garbage collection,
garbage collector,
garbage disposal,
garbage-inspector (all chiefly N.
Amer.);
garbage disposal unit (or
disposer), a device, usually fitted to the waste-pipe of a kitchen-sink, which grinds up and disposes of small amounts of kitchen waste,
esp. the remains of food.
| 1889 Century Mag. Sept. 750/1 Judges, lawyers, and notaries out of whose professional *garbage barrel he enjoyed a..privilege of feeding! |
| 1882 Sala Amer. Revis. (1885) 175 The *garbage-boxes or ash-barrels..are still the same unsightly..nuisances. |
| 1906 N.Y. Even. Post 23 Aug. 2 The landlords are not providing the tenants with *garbage and ash cans. 1914 Kipling Lett. of Travel (1920) 231 Every conceivable subject from the disposal of a garbage-can to that of a corpse. 1967 E. M. Noblet in Coast to Coast 1965–6 164 A pitiless tipping into the street of the..garbage-can contents of human lives. |
| 1911 Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 20 Apr. 6/3 The new system of *garbage collection will be inaugurated as soon as a sufficient number of garbage cans are secured. 1968 Globe & Mail (Toronto) 3 Feb. 10/6 Other services such as mail, transportation and garbage collection have come to a halt. |
| 1924 Collier's 19 Jan. 19/3 They determine whether the *garbage collector or the street cleaner is responsible for the removal of dead cats from blind alleys. 1953 Manch. Guardian Weekly 8 Oct. 5 City garbage collectors had been especially indolent. |
| 1900 Engineering Mag. XIX. 732 *Garbage disposal and water supply. 1949 Official Gaz. (U.S. Pat. Off.) 6 Sept. 73/1 Electrically-driven, *Garbage Disposal Unit. 1954 Good Housek. Home Encycl. 113/1 An electric garbage disposal unit can be fitted into the waste-pipe of some sinks. 1958 Times 13 Jan. 11/2 There is a garbage disposal unit for attachment to the sink which will eliminate all food waste such as small bones, vegetable scraps and peelings, fibrous material. |
| 1940 S. Lewis Bethel Merriday xxiv. 245 We're paying for..the new electric *garbage disposer. |
| 1896 Daily News 3 June 4/1 The responsible, if not dignified post, of *garbage inspector. |
Add:
[3.] b. Computing. Incorrect or inappropriate input; data that is useless or no longer required. Chiefly in
phr. garbage in, garbage out (
abbrev. *
GIGO n.): if the input or the program is incorrect, then the output will inevitably be incorrect as well.
colloq.| 1964, etc. [see *GIGO n.]. 1969 Guardian 10 Mar. 15/6 When garbage is fed into computers..only garbage comes out. 1985 Computerworld 28 Jan. sr 10/4 The integrated software requires that users enter data correctly..because if they enter garbage, the data base spreads that garbage to data files throughout the company. |
[5.] garbage collection, (
b)
Computing, the reclamation for subsequent use of memory storing ‘garbage’ (sense *3 b above) or data no longer required.
| 1967 Klerer & Korn Digital Computer User's Handbk. 251 Eventually..the free storage list will be exhausted; at this point a process known as garbage collection takes place. 1981 Winston & Horn LISP 107 Somehow [the cells]..should be returned to the free storage list so that they can be used again. Garbage collection is the technical term for what needs to be done. |
garbage collector, (
b)
Computing, a program designed for garbage collection (sense *(b)).
| 1960 J. McCarthy et al. LISP I Programmer's Man. 96 The program which retrieves the storage is a SAP-coded program called the *garbage collector. |
▪ II. † garbage, v. Obs. (
ˈgɑːbɪdʒ)
Forms: see the
n.; also 6
garbaige.
[f. prec. n.] 1. trans. To disembowel; to remove the offal from; to gut (fish).
| 1542 Udall Erasm. Apoph. ii. 161 His cooke found the same ryng in the bealy of a fishe which he garbaiged to dresse for his Lordes dyner. 1601 Weever Mirr. Mart. C iij, Men departed, Bowel'd, puld out, and garbisht euery day. 1610 Holland Camden's Brit. i. 186 Pilchards..are there taken, garbaged, salted, hanged in the smoke. 1672 J. Josselyn New Eng. Rarities 8 A Turkie Cock, that when he was pull'd and garbidg'd, weighed thirty pound. |
2. intr. To feed on offal. In
quot. fig.| 1650 A. Niccholes Disc. Marr. & Wiving vii. in Harl. Misc. (1744) II. 152 Lust..will garbadge without all Respect, or Controul, upon Adultery, Fornication [etc.]. |