Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Loose fragments or grains that have been worn away from rock.
- n. Disintegrated or eroded matter: the detritus of past civilizations.
- n. Accumulated material; debris: "Poems, engravings, press releases—he eagerly scrutinizes the detritus of fame” ( Carlin Romano).
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In geology, loose, uncompacted fragments of rock, either water-worn or angular. The term is especially applicable to a material which would be a breccia if consolidated into a rock. See gravel, sand, and drift.
- n. More comprehensively, any broken or comminuted, material worn away from a mass by attrition; any aggregate of loosened fragments or particles.
- n. In pathology, caseous or other disorganized material formed by the destruction of living tissue.
Wiktionary
- n. countable pieces of rock broken off by ice, glacier, or erosion.
- n. biology Organic waste material from decomposing dead plants or animals.
- n. debris or fragments of disintegrated material
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Geol.) A mass of substances worn off from solid bodies by attrition, and reduced to small portions.
- n. Hence: Any fragments separated from the body to which they belonged; any product of disintegration.
WordNet 3.0
- n. loose material (stone fragments and silt etc) that is worn away from rocks
- n. the remains of something that has been destroyed or broken up
Etymologies
- From Latin detritus ("the act of rubbing away"), from dēterō ("rub away"). (Wiktionary)
- French détritus, from Latin dētrītus, from past participle of dēterere, to lessen, wear away; see detriment. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“An adept hand with a pair of chopsticks is amazingly useful when removing a bit of random detritus from the garbage disposal.”
“This wretched, self-serious, self-righteous, pointless bit of science fiction detritus is based on a short story universally acknowledged as a classic of the genre, "Mimsy Were the Borogoves" by Henry Kuttner and Katherine L. Moore.”
“If you collected all the detritus from a 25 megaton bomb after the explosion, you would only be missing one kilogram of mass, and an average sized city.”
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“Heap up a big mound of duff and detritus from the forest floor, then excavate a pocket that is large enough to crawl into.”
“AK: I love what you've done in populating your landscape with bits of detritus from the Blake iconography, like the vines from "Holy Thursday.”
“It is an image of a sleek chrome bullet-train of genre dragging up dead leaves and detritus from the mainstream tracks as it rockets relentlessly forward.”
“The dross overwhelms, the detritus is everywhere".”
“I’m suprised your desk gets buried in detritus, I thought you had Bunnies for that kind of thing.”
“They supply lagoons with large quantities of detritus, which is later used by fish and invertebrates as a source of food.”
“Many people wander around with many things, and its undeniably a definining feature of the city that many, many street corners are covered in detritus.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘detritus’.
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phrontistery - d
from phrontistery.info
dacnomania, dacoitage, dacryops, dactylioglyph, dactyliology, dactyliomancy, dactylogram, dactylography, dactyloid, dactylology, dactylomancy, dactylomegaly and 624 more...
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wallace
Remington, Windsor, prorector, wen, aver, mottle, seltzer, tepee, lapidary, effete, sotto, presbyopia and 355 more...
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Used
halcyon, ineluctable, inspissated, incarnadine, askance, demur, saltation, requisite, effusive, specious, liminality, indomitable and 114 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2057 more...
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My Little Phonies
Names for the next generation of My Little Ponies. Inspired by Star's list.
juggernaught, flamboyant, cuddly maggot, astrobleme, agroof, windburn, poshlost, crucifer, feedbag, dunderwhelp, nebelwerfer, bliss ninny and 453 more...
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cicatrix
scar tissue
minatory, naira, Cluniac, embracive, prolix, hierophant, timorous, adduce, veracious, dysphoric, sang-froid, vitiate and 505 more...
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TheLaughorist's list
Solipsistic Stew
sphalm, solipsism, philopolemic, fulgor, dorbel, elozable, amnion, woiwode, illiquid, pinkwash, clawback, folderol and 9 more...
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Good mouth feel words
just like it sounds
detritus, qua, denouement, translucent, obsequious, prismatic, Lanquidity, interestingness, dailiness, messily, liquefy, randomalia and 6 more...
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xulilux's list
leviathan, destitute, iapetus, caesura, ineffable, eschew, phosphene, fungible, antediluvian, nomenclature, mottle, europa and 84 more...
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Favorite Words
pablum, maundy, histrionic, adamant, ascribe, verbiage, insouciant, erudite, gregarious, superfluous, banal, obdurate and 280 more...
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catinthehat345's List
compere, reticle, colophon, miasma, eldritch, raconteur, plectrum, poltroon, vestibular, pastiche, cravat, acumen and 179 more...
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bös
nondescript collections of stuff.
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BonMots
assiduous, progeny, hegemony, nascent, reticent, ephemera, zeitgeist, recalcitrant, copious, corporeal, cacaphonous, obstreperous and 108 more...
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je les adore!
fusillade, foal, celestial, abattoir, byzantium, berlin, casablanca, babylon, balkans, albion, avalon, between the devil... and 471 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
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GRE
trope, surreptitious, tenet, insular, munificent, exegesis, limpid, acerbic, litany, cupidity, restive, protract and 260 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for detritus.
RevBrently From Dave Eggers' "Zeitoun," p. 128: "The water was filthy now, streaked with oil and spotted with detritus." Aug 4, 2012
tbtabby A badass troll. Jan 27, 2012