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wastebasket en · NOUN

Etymology

From waste + basket.

Meanings

1. A usually small indoor receptacle for items that are to be discarded; a rubbish bin.
2. (broadly, figuratively) Any region or grouping that is worthless or meaningless.
   • 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” […] 2008, Harald Burger, Dmitrij Dobrovol'skij, Peter Kühn, Phraseologie / Phraseology, volume 2, page 819:
   • The order Insectivora provides such a taxonomic wastebasket in classifications of the placental mammals. 2017, Russell Tuttle, The Functional and Evolutionary Biology of Primates, page 122:

Forms

Spelling	Features	Labels	Source
wastebaskets	Number=Plur		lexicographic

Deriveds

wastebasket taxon

wastebasket en · VERB

Etymology

From waste + basket.

Meanings

1. (transitive) 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. 1924, Mark Twain, Autobiography:

Forms

Spelling	Features	Labels	Source
wastebasketing	Tense=Pres, VerbForm=Part		lexicographic
wastebasketed	Tense=Past, VerbForm=Part		lexicographic
wastebasketed	Tense=Past		lexicographic
wastebaskets	Number=Sing, Person=3, Tense=Pres		lexicographic

Relateds

wastepaper basket