This has been a rubbish day, and it’s about to get worse: my mother-in-law is coming to stay.

Disk interfaces have been around since the year dot, as people soon realised that the microdrive was unreliable, unstable and generally rubbish for the storage of anything, useless except as a rather small beermat.

A-level students will study Russell Brand's views on drugs and Caitlin Moran's Twitter feed alongside more conventional literature in a new A-level that was immediately denounced as "rubbish" by sources at the Department for Education.

The one day I actually practice my violin, the teacher cancels the lesson.
Aw, rubbish! Though at least this means you have time to play football.

Rubbish, sir, rubbish! Pestilent and pernicious rubbish! An honest man must consider what he owes to his name and his rank. That is the first consideration.

The rubbish is collected every Thursday in Gloucester, but on Wednesdays in Cheltenham.

[T]he Employments of the common Ants or Workers […] are partly the Management of the Young, and the Building their little Hills of Straw, Rubbiſh, and Particles of Earth, mixed with Blades of Graſs, into little Mounds or Ramparts, on which to expoſe the Eggs and Nymphs to the Sun-beams; their other great Employment is, in collecting Proviſions.

In the course of this operation [the copper-fastening of new, or the re-coppering of old, vessels], and more especially in a repair of this latter description, old copper nails, stray pieces of bold and sheet copper, with other parings of a similar nature, are lost among the chips, or in the bottom of the dock. These chips are sold at an almost nominal price, as rubbish, to the smelters, who cart them away often in large quantities, burn the chips out, then wash and smelt the remainder, if necessary, in the ordinary manner.

The plaintiff claimed damages from the defendants for a breach of duty in allowing and permitting dirt and rubbish to be thrown or put upon a lane or public highway upon which his premises abutted. It appeared in evidence that the damage complained of was occasioned by the filling in and levelling a hollow in the lane, by means whereof the plaintiff's fence was pressed inwards, the filling in being done by private individuals throwing dirt and rubbish thereon.

Goats are adventurous eaters. They nose around in rubbish looking for scraps of food.

[W]e may add that publications of this nature always contain much rubbiſh to make up the bulk; for to produce a neat collection of true wit, requires talents and judgment that would ſcarcely ſtoop to the taſk.

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?

I ſhall […] lay out of my way the whole bede-roll of citations and precedents which they have produced, that heterogeneous heap of rubbiſh, which is only calculated to confound your Lordſhips, and miſlead the argument.

That Antichriſt is a man exerciſing a kingdome, the head of the vniuerſall Apoſtaſie, […] the Romane monarchie being diuided and fallen downe, out of the rubbiſhes whereof, he is by litle & litle riſen & increaſed, thorow the power and forcible working of Sathan, […]

E'er since poor Cheapside cross in rubbage lay, […]

Nothing remains of Utica, excepting a heap of rubbiſh and ſmall ſtones: but the trenches and approaches of the ancient beſiegers are ſtill very perfect.

In my judgment, it is not Christian—I think that is the proper way to put it—to rubbish the leaders of our trade union movements, both employers' and workers'. … The employers are quite right in rubbishing this section. The recently retired Chief Ombudsman rubbished it. The insurance guild, not exactly known as a militant trade union until recently, has rubbished it. Twenty-nine leaders in our community have rubbished it.

Oh, there is fuel enough for the memoirs, even if Marion's eyes glaze over, periodically, during tea or one of Corrie's rather awful lunches …. The names flow forth, and are rubbished or extolled, …

'It's the first real acting job I've had and he completely rubbishes it. My career will be over before it even starts.' / 'I wouldn't take it too personally,' Shelley said as she reloaded the café dishwasher. 'Bryn Dwyer rubbishes just about everything. [...']

Such irresponsible comments seem to me clearly an attempt for political reasons to rubbish a past that was of a far better quality than anything that exists today.

Delia's Complete Cookery Course is still in print more than 40 years since its first publication. “Everybody did rubbish it,” she says.

Speaking at today's (Tuesday) press conference to announce details of the show, Chairman of the Steering Committee, Mr Cheng Chun-ping urged members of the public to sustain their keep clean efforts and to let the message of the campaign slogan -- "There is never any excuse to rubbish your home" stride across the new Millennium.

In the 1970s there was a hugely successful campaign using the slogan: "You wouldn't rubbish your home. Australia's your home. Don't rubbish Australia." The adverts compared tossing table scraps on to the carpet with throwing food packaging from a car. It worked.

Rubbish

Meaning

Noun

Adj

Intj

Verb

Origin