Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use litter in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun, verb

Litter means straw, grass, and similar loose material used as bedding for people or animals. Example: “The runt of the litter is the smallest or weakest of a group of puppies born together.”

Examples of litter by meaning

nounA bed, especially a pile of straw (sometimes also with blankets) used as a bed.

  • They slept upon litters of jungle grasses, and for covering at night Jane Porter had only an old ulster that belonged to Clayton, the same garment that he had worn upon that memorable trip to the Wisconsin woods.1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 177

nounAny of the other similar conveyances, such as sedan chairs, hammock litters, and the like.

  • When they went out, they sat in litters, which were curtained.1922, Maneckji Nusservanji Dhalla, Zoroastrian Civilization, page 219

nounThe whole group of live young born at the same time, typically in reference to mammals or (figurative, derogatory)...

  • The runt of the litter is the smallest or weakest of a group of puppies born together.

nounWaste or debris, originally any mess but now particularly trash left or thrown on the ground.

  • What are you doing?! There's a litter bin not three feet away.
  • The British people seem incapable of avoiding the habit of leaving litter wherever they go, and the railways certainly seem to receive their fair share of it, in carriages and on stations.1962 October, Brian Haresnape, “Focus on B.R. passenger stations”, in Modern Railways, page 254
  • In the case of a simple problem such as littering, the success or failure of a solution can immediately be assessed once and for all.2023, Charles Chao Rong Phua, Policy Strategy and Innovation Primer..., p. 22

nounThe layer of fallen leaves and other loose organic material on the ground in a forest.

  • Forest animals use leaf litter in a variety of ways, including as food, shelter, nesting material, bedding, and camouflage.
  • Litter, that portion of the forest floor which is not in an advanced state of decomposition.1905, "Terms Used in Forestry and Logging", Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Forestry, No. 61, p. 14

nounFuller's earth, clay pellets, wood chips, or other similar loose absorbent materials used for the waste of pet animals.

  • Change the cat litter fer chrissakes. This place reeks.

verbTo drop or throw trash without properly disposing of it (as discarding in public areas rather than trash receptacles).

  • By tossing the bottle out the window, he was littering.

verbTo strew (a place) with scattered articles.

  • A single written sheet of paper was on the table near her—but there were more than a hundred others, torn across, littering the floor.1927, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], Max Carrados Mysteries

More sentences with litter

  • The litter was the fruit of the union between our whippet and their terrier.From the entry fruit
  • The two cats were as like as though they had come from the same litter.From the entry like
  • She was fined a thousand dollars for littering, but she appealed.From the entry fine
  • The ground was littered with used syringes left behind by drug abusers.From the entry used
  • The highways of the USA are littered with descansos, silent reminders of automobile accidents.From the entry descanso
  • The shoreline was littered with the floating jettison from the wrecked freighter.From the entry jettison
  • It really gets my goat when inconsiderate people drop litter in public.From the entry get someone's goat
  • Under my generalship my fine troop of brats picked up every scrap of litter in that lot.From the entry generalship
  • The ground was littered with broken bones.From the entry broken
  • The cage was littered with animal waste.From the entry waste
  • The she-wolf whelped a large litter of cubs.From the entry whelp
  • The battlefield was littered with the dead and dying.From the entry dying
  • Keep Britain tidy by picking up litter.From the entry tidy
  • Of the books I read this summer, A Tale of Two Cities was the pick of the litter.From the entry pick of the litter
  • Pregnant women are often advised to have someone else clean the litter box to reduce the risk of contracting toxoplasmosis.From the entry litter box
  • The hikers were issued with an on-the-spot fine for littering.From the entry on-the-spot
  • It really grinds my gears when inconsiderate people litter.From the entry grind one's gears
  • The ground was littered with unpollinated nutlets.From the entry unpollinated
  • The poem is littered with stave-rhymes like "start, stop".From the entry stave-rhyme
  • The dialogue was littered with f-words.From the entry f-word
  • Space is littered with interstellar particles.From the entry interstellar
  • Or it can be a broken and burned gull feather littered along the runway.2022 April 14, Jason Bittel, “‘Snarge’ Happens, and Studying It Makes Your Flight Safer”, in New York Times, archived from the original on…. From the entry snarge
  • It would be nice to know, for example, what jewelry he selected for his litter box.2019 January 5, Rex Murphy, “Much show, null impact: How the Liberal carbon tax is not unlike that $2,000 cat door”, in National Post…. From the entry Robert's your uncle
  • The floor is littered with clumps of fake hair and vajazzle sequins.2015 April 2, Tessa Clayton, Wannabe - Choose Your Own Celebrity Adventure, →ISBN, page 95. From the entry cycle path
  • Larval proctotrupids are mostly parasitoids of litter or rotten wood-inhabiting larvae.2015, Vladimir V. Gouli, Concise Illustrated Dictionary of Biocontrol Terms, page 116. From the entry proctotrupid
  • After feeding the cats and defrogging the litter box, she grabs her winter coat, hat, and scarf.2015, Sherry Levesque, Demented. From the entry defrog
  • History is littered with our indifference—dodo birds, great auks, 24-rayed sunstars, dusky seaside sparrows, Bernard’s wolves.2015, M. R. O’Connor, “Introduction”, in Resurrection Science: Conservation, De-Extinction and the Precarious Future of Wild Things, New…. From the entry Bernard's wolf
  • The Linquists are expecting a litter of two-hundred and seven next week; we could use some candy-stripers.”2012, James Gough, “Maggot Duty”, in Cloak, Salt Lake City, Ut.: WiDō Publishing, →ISBN, pages 246–247. From the entry candy-striper
  • He was selling a litter of 12 bonhams half-covered with straw.2010 February 10, Con Houlihan, “Gambling pride on price of the piglets”, in The Herald, Dublin. From the entry bonhams

Meaning of litter

  1. noun Straw, grass, and similar loose material used as bedding for people or animals.
  2. noun A bed, especially a pile of straw (sometimes also with blankets) used as a bed.
  3. noun Animal bedding together with its dung.

Full definition of litter

Questions about litter in a sentence

How do you use litter in a sentence?
Litter is used as a noun and verb. For example: “The runt of the litter is the smallest or weakest of a group of puppies born together.”
What is a short sentence with litter?
“Space is littered with interstellar particles.”
What does litter mean?
Litter means straw, grass, and similar loose material used as bedding for people or animals.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: litter (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use litter in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/litter. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.