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PlainSpell

trash

/tɹæʃ/noun, verb

trash is spelled T-R-A-S-H: 5 letters and one syllable. It appears 26 times per million words in written English, the 3,479th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, trash means “Useless physical things to be discarded; rubbish; refuse” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of trash is trashes.

How many letters and syllables are in trash?

Letters5: T-R-A-S-H
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing26 times per million words; the 3,479th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How common is trash?

Trash appears 26 times per million words in written English, the 3,479th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce trash?

  • /tɹæʃ/

Trash has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-trash.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of trash

  • trashes plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • trashing participle, present
  • trashed participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does trash mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    CanadaUSUseless physical things to be discarded; rubbish; refuse.

  2. 2

    CanadaUSA container into which things are discarded.

  3. 3

    CanadaUSSomething worthless or of poor quality.

    When your life is trash, you don't have much to lose.

  4. 4

    CanadaUSMedia, such as movies and novels, that are entertaining but unsophisticated, crass or aimed at the lowest common denominator.

    My guilty pleasure is 80s horror trash.

  5. 5

    A dubious assertion, either for appearing untrue or for being excessively boastful.

  6. 6

    USThe disused stems, leaves, or vines of a crop, sometimes mixed with weeds, which will either be plowed in as green manure or be removed by raking, grazing, or burning.

  7. 7

    Loose-leaf tobacco of a low grade, with much less commercial value than the principal grades.

  8. 8

    CanadaUSderogatoryslangPeople of low social status or class. (See, for example, white trash or Eurotrash.)

verb

  1. 1

    USTo discard.

  2. 2

    USTo make into a mess.

    The burglars trashed the house.

  3. 3

    USTo beat soundly in a game.

  4. 4

    To treat as trash, or worthless matter; hence, to spurn, humiliate, or disrespect.

    20 May 2018, Hadley Freeman in The Guardian, Is Meghan Markle the American the royals have needed all along? It is a British tradition for the media to celebrate an upcoming royal wedding by trashing the incoming in-laws, from Diana’s stepm

  5. 5

    To free from trash, or worthless matter; hence, to lop; to crop.

    to trash the rattoons of sugar cane

  6. 6

    To hold back by a trash or leash, as a dog in pursuing game; hence, to retard, encumber, or restrain; to clog; to hinder vexatiously.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Trash in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchdéchet (things to be discarded), corbeille à papier (container), corbeille (computer terminology)
GermanAbfall, Mist, Müll, Unrat (things to be discarded), Mistkübel, Mülleimer (container)
Portugueselixo (things to be discarded), lixeira (container), porcaria (something of poor quality), jogar fora (to discard)
Spanishbasura, tlazol, tlazole, clazol (things to be discarded), caneca, papelera (container)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does trash come from?

From Middle English trasch, trassh, probably a dialectal form of *trass (compare Orkney truss, English dialectal trous), from Old Norse tros (“rubbish, fallen leaves and twigs”), perhaps related to Proto-Germanic *þrakjaz (“dirt”). Pokorny instead derives it from Proto-Indo-European *dóru (“tree”). Compare Norwegian trask (“lumber, trash, baggage”), Swedish trasa (“rag, cloth, worthless fellow”), Swedish trås (“dry fallen twigs, wood-waste”). Compare also Old English þreax (“rottenness, rubbish”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after trash