The verb is derived from the noun.

• (RP) IPA: /ˈɹʌbɪʃ/
• (America) IPA: /ˈɹʌbɪʃ/, /ˈɹə-/

rubbish (uncountable)

1. (chiefly, Commonwealth) Refuse, waste, garbage, junk, trash.

   Synonyms: Thesaurus:trash

   The rubbish is collected every Thursday in Gloucester, but on Wednesdays in Cheltenham.

   • 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act I, scene iii], page 113 ↗:

     What traſh is Rome? / What Rubbiſh and what Offall? when it ſerues / For the baſe matter, to illuminate / So vile a thing as Cæsar.

     Rome is trash, rubbish and offal when it serves as inferior matter that is burned to illuminate so vile a thing as Caesar.

   • [1939 May 4, James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, London: Faber and Faber Limited, →OCLC ↗; republished London: Faber & Faber Limited, 1960, →OCLC ↗, part I, page 17 ↗:

     Simply because as Taciturn pretells, our wrongstoryshortener, he dumptied the wholeborrow of rubbages on to soil here.]

   • 1957, Jack Kerouac, chapter 11, in On the Road, Viking Press, →OCLC ↗:

     […] I was sleeping with my head on the wooden arm of a seat as six attendants of the theater converged with their night's total of swept-up rubbish and created a huge dusty pile that reached to my nose as I snored head down—till they almost swept me away too. […] Had they taken me with it, Dean would have never seen me again. He would have had to roam the entire United States and look in every garbage pail from coast to coast before he found me embryonically convoluted among the rubbishes of my life, his life, and the life of everybody concerned and not concerned.

2. (by extension, chiefly, Commonwealth) An item, or items, of low quality.

   Much of what they sell is rubbish.

   • 1884 December 9, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter VIII, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer's Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC ↗, page 65 ↗:

     "And ain't you had nothing but that kind of rubbage to eat?" / "No, sah—nuffn' else."

3. (by extension, chiefly, Commonwealth) Nonsense.

   Synonyms: Thesaurus:nonsense

   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?

   • 1923, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “Neighbours”, in Kangaroo, London: Martin Secker […], →OCLC ↗, pages 27–28 ↗:

     "Essays about what?" / "Oh—rubbish mostly." / There was a moment's pause. / "Oh, Lovat, don't be so silly. You know you don't think your essays rubbish," put in Harriet. "They're about life, and democracy, and equality, and all that sort of thing," Harriet explained.

   • 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, published 1934, →OCLC ↗, pages 23–24 ↗:

     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.

4. (archaic) Debris or ruins of buildings; rubble.
   • 1667, John Dryden, Annus Mirabilis: The Year of Wonders, 1666. […], London: […] Henry Herringman, […], →OCLC ↗, stanza 280, [https://archive.org/details/bim_early-english-books-1641-1700_annus-mirabilis-_dryden-john_1667/page/(71)/mode/1up page 71]:

     At length th' Almighty caſt a pitying eye, / And mercy ſoftly touch'd his melting breaſt: / He ſaw the town's one half in rubbiſh lie, / And eager flames give on to ſtorm the reſt.

   • 1697, Virgil, “The Eighth Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC ↗, page 441 ↗, lines 252–255:

     See, from afar, yon Rock that mates the Sky, / About whoſe Feet ſuch Heaps of Rubbiſh lye: / Such indigeſted Ruin; bleak and bare, / How deſart now it ſtands, expos'd in Air!

• rubble (possibly)

• German: Ramsch

• French: absurdités, inepties
• German: Quatsch, Blödsinn, Unsinn, Mist
• Italian: corbelleria, cretinata, assurdità
• Portuguese: besteira, asneira
• Russian: чепуха́

• French: décombres

rubbish

1. (chiefly, UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, colloquial) Exceedingly bad; awful.

   Synonyms: abysmal, crappy, horrendous, shitty, terrible, Thesaurus:bad, Thesaurus:low-quality

   This has been a rubbish day, and it’s about to get worse: my mother-in-law is coming to stay.

• French: pourri
• Portuguese: horrível

1. Used to express that something is exceedingly bad, awful, or terrible.

   The one day I actually practice my violin, the teacher cancels the lesson.
   Aw, rubbish! Though at least this means you have time to play football.

2. Used to express that what was recently said is nonsense or untrue; balderdash!, nonsense!

   Synonyms: bollocks, bullshit

   Rubbish! I did nothing of the sort!

• German: Müll
• Italian: schifezza, sciocchezza
• Portuguese: porcaria

• French: n'importe quoi
• German: Quatsch
• Italian: corbelleria, cretinata, assurdità
• Portuguese: besteira

rubbish (rubbishes, present participle rubbishing; simple past and past participle rubbished)

1. (transitive, chiefly, UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, colloquial) To criticize, to denigrate, to denounce, to disparage. [from c. 1950s (Australia, New Zealand)]
   • 1995, Nick Hornby, chapter 13, in High Fidelity, London: Victor Gollancz, →ISBN, page 122 ↗:

     We're messing around at work, the three of us, getting ready to go home and rubbishing each other's five best side one track ones of all time [...]

2. (transitive, Australia, Hong Kong) To litter.

• Portuguese: criticar