garbage heap
1
2.3
- noun
- /ˈɡɑːrbɪdʒ hiːp/
- US
:
montón de basura
- In his early teens, the oldest son spent his days scrounging the streets and garbage heaps for plastic bags and other scraps of anything salvageable to sell.
Examples
-
Often, they would have to search garbage heaps for scraps of whatever they could find to feed themselves.
Fiction book (1997) -
Kind of hard to believe it was just a garbage heap.
-
It's hard to believe it was just a garbage heap.
Fiction book (1994) -
Bury it all in a garbage heap out by the highway.
Blog text (12) -
I'd toss it out on the garbage heap.
Blog text (25) -
The boys sprint after the chickens, which are now on top of a garbage heap.
Fiction book (2000) -
The old tire and broken bottles were added to the garbage heap at the end of the street.
-
After the party, we took the leftover food and other waste to the garbage heap behind the house.
-
Stray animals often rummage through the garbage heap looking for something to eat.
Synonyms
3
2.4
A pile of garbage and old things people throw away
3
4.2
A messy pile of old broken things people throw away
2
2.7
A messy heap of old things that people throw away
1
1.3
A heap of thrown away things like paper and bottles
1
2.7
A pile of waste and old things
1
5.4
A pile of old broken metal and other things kept to be thrown away
A pile of rubbish left outside in one place
A pile of dust and old rubbish thrown away
How Big
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a large pile of refuse' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'garbage' (refuse) with 'heap' (a pile), so a learner who knows both words can infer the compound meaning. This is a straightforward compositional noun phrase following common compounding patterns found across languages, making it readily understandable to a B1 learner.
Etymology
The noun garbage heap comes from a simple image: garbage means waste and heap means pile, so you can picture a big messy pile of trash where people throw things away. That's why it means 'a large pile or accumulation of refuse'.