castoff
2
4.4
- noun
- /ˈkæstˌɔf/
:
objeto desechado
- We had met socially, and she took pity on my student poverty, giving me castoff clothes.
- castoff clothes
- castoff junk
- castoff pieces of clothing
Examples
-
Once there, she slipped a clean apron over her good dress, a loose-fitting dark calico with a yoke neck, one of Oreline's last-season castoffs her mother had altered to fit the girl's small body.
Fiction book (2002) -
The significance of this transformation shapes statements like Alabama sculptor Charlie Lucas's about his rural yard, where wire and old car parts rise into monumental dinosaurs and guardian figures: "It's just castoff stuff people throw away."
Academic text (1993) -
I do this in the kitchen, the only room large enough to house my enormous desk, a castoff from my father's office in midtown.
Academic text (2005) -
Willie may be mad, but he is well-read, having mooched my castoff books for years.
Fiction book (1994) -
They live in a shadow country made of castoffs.
Academic text (2009) -
Mr. H's front and back yards teem with equipment that no longer works, with his own castoffs and with other people's.
Fiction book (1992) -
A hard overnight frost makes litter look like fine crystal, a fallen leaf look like a jeweled ornament, and a castoff sofa look like a venerable antique.
Blog text (29) -
She donated her old sofa, a castoff from her living room, to a local charity.
-
The box was filled with castoffs that were once belonging to her teenage son.
-
Many of the castoffs from the last festival were repurposed into art installations.
Synonyms
3
3.9
An item that someone has thrown away because they no longer want it
1
4.5
A thing, often clothing, that someone has thrown away
An item that people throw away because they do not want it
Antonyms
How Wanted
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Castoff comes from cast 'throw' + off 'away', so a castoff is an item the owner has 'thrown away' or given to someone else. That is why thrift shops and garage sales are full of castoffs.