Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use rubbish in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun, adjective, interjection

Rubbish means refuse, waste, garbage, junk, trash. Example: “The rubbish is collected every Thursday in Gloucester, but on Wednesdays in Cheltenham.”

Examples of rubbish by meaning

nounRefuse, waste, garbage, junk, trash.

  • The rubbish is collected every Thursday in Gloucester, but on Wednesdays in Cheltenham.
  • They nose around in rubbish looking for scraps of food.2015, Jody Sullivan Rake, “Rubbish-eating Goats”, in Abby Colich, editor, Rubbish Munchers of the Animal World, London: Raintree, Capstone...

nounAn item, or items, of low quality.

  • Much of what they sell is utter rubbish.

nounNonsense.

  • 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?
  • You know you don't think your essays rubbish," put in Harriet.1923, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “Neighbours”, in Kangaroo, London: Martin Secker […], →OCLC, pages 27–28
  • But just now she felt that there was something flippant and unseemly in talking such fantastic rubbish: dreams seemed out of place when reality was so heartbreaking.1933, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], chapter II, in The Way of the Scarlet Pimpernel, New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons...

adjectiveExceedingly bad; awful.

  • 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.1989 June, Phil Snout [pseudonym; Phil South], “Rage Hard”, in Matt Bielby, editor, Your Sinclair, number 42, London: Dennis Publishing...
  • 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.2014 May 6, Richard Adams, “English A-level with Russell Brand and Dizzee Rascal on reading list under fire”, in The Guardian

interjectionUsed to express that what was recently said is nonsense or untrue; balderdash!, nonsense!

  • Rubbish! I did nothing of the sort!
  • Rubbish, sir, rubbish!1906, Alfred Sutro, The Walls of Jericho: A Play in Four Acts, French’s Standard Library edition, New York, N.Y.; London: Samuel French...

verbTo criticize, to denigrate, to denounce, to disparage.

  • The recently retired Chief Ombudsman rubbished it.1977 August 17, A[rthur] J[ames] Faulkner, “Human Rights Commission Bill”, in Parliamentary Debates (Hansard): Third Session, Thirty-eighth...
  • 'It's the first real acting job I've had and he completely rubbishes it.2012, Melanie Milburne, chapter 1, in The Virgin’s Price, London: Mill & Boon Sexy, →ISBN
  • 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.2020 May 20, Barry Doe, “McLoughlin unfair with opinion of late-BR rail”, in Rail, page 65

verbTo litter.

  • In the 1970s there was a hugely successful campaign using the slogan: "You wouldn't rubbish your home.2007 March 8, Tika Viker-Bloss, “How to tackle the rising tide of litter in filthy Britain”, in The Guardian

More sentences with rubbish

  • If you leave a bin unattended for a few weeks, the rubbish inside will turn rotten.From the entry rotten
  • He was in such a good mood that he even managed to take out the rubbish jocularly.From the entry jocularly
  • Our scavengings at the rubbish dump often yielded items of value.From the entry scavenging
  • You face an unlimited fine if your rubbish is found fly-tipped.From the entry fly-tip
  • A scavenger picked through the rubbish heap.From the entry scavenger
  • My head is exploding from all this rubbish.From the entry exploding
  • “Franklin quit today.” “Well, good riddance to bad rubbish!”From the entry good riddance to bad rubbish
  • I need to take the rubbish bag out.From the entry rubbish bag
  • Rubbish was strewn about the place.From the entry about
  • All this old rubbish can go.From the entry go
  • I know places that have a great feed, but the food is rubbish.2017 April 16, Eleanor Morgan, quoting James Lowe, “Food that looks good enough to… Instagram”, in The Guardian. From the entry 'grammable
  • You just a hustla who sell rubbish for a million dollar.2014, James A. Levine, Bingo’s Run, New York, N.Y.: Spiegel & Grau, →ISBN, page 170. From the entry hustla
  • Some are left for dead on rubbish tips, in refuge bags or at public toilets.2011 May 10, David Smith, “South African ‘baby safe’ condemned by child welfare groups”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London…. From the entry public
  • The priest would bring salvation while the garbo took the rubbish.2010, Adam Shand, The Skull: Informers, Hit Men and Australia′s Toughest Cop, page 350. From the entry garbo
  • There are four rooms of great music from indie to the 'rubbish room'.2008, Tom Masters, Steve Fallon, Vesna Maric, London: City Guide. From the entry studenty
  • Their das done that, they just raked yer midgie and got yer old rubbish.2008, James Kelman, Kieron Smith, Boy, Penguin, published 2009, page 32. From the entry midgie
  • People are people, but the group already has enough rubbish for you to encourage more.1994 June 16, (Jare/Iguana), “PC Demos”, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.demos (Usenet), archived from the original on 19 Aug 2026. From the entry Amigaer
  • I mean, we can do without that sort of Scroogesque rubbish.1987 December 24, “Santa Claus”, quotee, “The Santa Interview”, in The Age, 134th year, number 41,364, page 1. From the entry Scroogesque
  • “Really, all this nationalist rubbish gets on one’s nerves,” she would say.1946 May, Joyce Cary, The Moonlight, Carfax edition, London: Michael Joseph, published 1952, page 273. From the entry propagandum
  • It's good riddance to bad rubbish, but it's likely to make trouble for me yet.1903 November 27, [Francis Worcester Doughty], “The Bradys and Brady the Banker; or, The Secret of the Old Santa Fe Trail”, in Secret…. From the entry good riddance to bad rubbish
  • Ten tonnes of rubbish have been removed by Network Rail from a trackside fly-tipping hotspot north of the station.2021 June 16, Howard Johnston, “Regional News: Eastern: Hartlepool”, in RAIL, number 933, page 26. From the entry fly-tipping
  • He had found lots of the bits and pieces he needed for the van from the rubbish dump.2012, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Ratburger, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN. From the entry bits and pieces
  • In most countries, rubbish makes headlines only when it is not collected, and stinking sacks lie heaped on the streets.2010, The Economist, Jul-Aug 2010, p. 27. From the entry staple
  • Rubbish and filth must be regularly and immediately removed and the rooms perfumed daily or ‘even more than once a day’.2010, Samuel K. Cohn, Jr., “Plague Psychology”, in Cultures of Plague: Medical Thinking at the End of the Renaissance, Oxford…. From the entry lazaretto
  • There are two rubbish tips in Rother.2009, Rother District Council, Rother District Council Website. From the entry tip

Meaning of rubbish

  1. noun Refuse, waste, garbage, junk, trash.
  2. noun An item, or items, of low quality.
  3. noun Nonsense.

Full definition of rubbish

Questions about rubbish in a sentence

How do you use rubbish in a sentence?
Rubbish is used as a noun, adjective and interjection. For example: “The rubbish is collected every Thursday in Gloucester, but on Wednesdays in Cheltenham.”
What is a short sentence with rubbish?
“Rubbish, sir, rubbish!”
What does rubbish mean?
Rubbish means refuse, waste, garbage, junk, trash.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rubbish (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 rubbish in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/rubbish. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.