trash n.
1. money [the identification of money and dirt].
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | James IV III i: Therefore must I bid him provide trash, for my Maister is no friend without mony. | |
 | Julius Caesar IV iii: I had rather coin my heart, And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash By any indirection. | |
| Match at Midnight I i: I tell ’em I haue given over Brokering, moyling for mucke and trash. | |
| Night-Walker Oct. 6: How to save that Trash which they had not the heart to spend. | |
| Humours of Oxford I i: Hang Fortune, I say – Trash – mere Dirt. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Midas I iv: mid.: Nysa, you say, refus’d the guineas British [...] dam.: Out, pimp, said she – take back to him who sent it, That trash. | |
| (trans.) Adventures of Gil Blas (1822) I 51: Money! said he, with a look of surprize; you have a poor opinion of Spanish charity, if you think people of my stamp have any occasion for such trash upon their travels [...] We carry no cash with us on the road. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Our Boys 235: In six months your government at Washington will go smash, and your green trash won’t be worth a snap. | |
| Memoirs of the US Secret Service 364: The sellers of the trash [...] never pretended to him that these notes were genuine. | |
| Cincinnati Enquirer 7 Sept. 10/7: Wealth, [...] Filthy Lucre, Trash, Shiners, Shinnies--are the synonyms of money. |
2. (US black) loose talk, banter, teasing; usu. as talk trash [note Joyce, Ulysses (1922): ‘He was going about with some of them Sinner Fein lately or whatever they call themselves talking his usual trash and nonsense’].
| [ | | Belfast News Letter 12 Sept. n.p.: Mr D’Eyncourt said it was foolish for a grown-up woman [...] to believe in such trash]. |
| Jives of Dr. Hepcat (1989) 2: On the late bright after you have put down your easy slave you drape yourself in shape and tamp on the cuts where the cats are putting down much trash and everything is much solid. | |
| Cotters’ England (1980) 163: Teasing a poor woman who doesn’t want to hear your trifling trash. | |
| The Same Old Grind 62: ‘[Y]ou can’t talk that trash to save your soul’. | |
| Campus Sl. Nov. 5: trash – malicious statements, gossip. |
3. (US drugs) heroin [i.e. dirt n. (10b)].
| Central Sl. |
4. sexually independent young women, thus judged as ‘fast’, ‘bad’ or promiscuous.
| (con. 1925) Life in Jazz 109: ‘Them fast, wild young women are jumping from man to man. They's just wild [...] they're fast and foolish. They're common. They're trash, garbage’. |
6. see white trash n.
In compounds
(US campus) one who regularly uses profanity or obscenity; slandererous talk; the speech that is delivered; also attrib; in v. use, to talk with the intention of breaking somone’s concentration.
| ‘Razorback Sl.’ in AS L:1/2 68: trashmouth n One who regularly uses obscenity and profanity. | |
| Great Santini (1977) 117: Who puttin’ that kind of trash mouth on me? | |
| It (1987) 230: He was not known as Trashmouth for nothing. | |
| News-Press (Fort Myers, FL) 10 Oct. 45/1: I don’t understand the desirability of a trashmouth [...] This is the lowest common denominator stuff. | |
| Dly News (Lebanon, PA) 25 Jan. 9/1: Tired of thugs, trouble makers, trashmouths [etc]. | |
| Detroit Free Press (MI) 19 Aug. 150/6: [A] tight-lipped trash-mouth campaign political director. | |
| Don’t Look Back 217: In pitching to him now, Satch sought the edge, to get inside Josh’s head by trashmouthing him as he came to the plate. | |
| Fort Worth Star-Telegram (TX) 27 July 5/1: He intends to avoid [...] what he calls ‘trash-mouth politics’. | |
| Dly Review (Morgan City, LA) 30 Aug. 4/3: Trashmouth Rep. Rashida Tlaib. |
see separate entries.
In phrases
(US) a phr. of greeting.
| Phila. Eve. Bulletin 11 Nov. n.p.: Remember way back then you used to say ‘whatcha know, Joe?’ ’Tain’t like that no more, kid. Now you say ‘Let’s talk trash’ or else ask ‘What’s shakin’?’ The answer is: ‘Nothin’ but the bacon.’. |
a socially inferior individual, a member of the underclass.
| Wash. Morn. Chron. quoted in Safire Pol. Dict. (2008) 644/1: Whenever a white man appears to vote [in Alabama] every one of these infuriated devils ... set up a yell calling him ‘white negro,’ ‘low trash,’ ‘Scalawag’. | |
| Milan Exchange (Gibson Co., TN) 6 May 6/5: As he slept, a low-trash nigger came upon the scene. | |
| Divine Law of Mastership 202: There are those among the seemingly cultured of the white race who express contempt for their less fortunate brothers by designating them as ‘low trash’. |
(US black) to talk insincerely, to boast, to lie, esp. when pursuing sex.
| [ | | Upper Ten Thousand 114: A Frenchman will rather talk trash, knowing he is talking trash, than remain silent]. |
| ‘Let the Good Times Roll’ 🎵 Don’t sit there mumblin’ / And talkin’ trash / If you want to have a ball / You got to go out and spend some cash. | |
| Jives of Dr. Hepcat (1989) 6: Here’s a cat that lays a group of ivory talking trash and strictly putting down a gang of jive. The situation is much mellow, it’s many fine and understand gates it will tighten your wig. | |
| Down These Mean Streets (1970) 112: She started talking trash through her hair. | |
| Black Players 43: An important part of ‘hitting on’ a woman is a particular style of verbal encounter called talking shit, talking that talk, or talking trash. This manner of publicly accosting a woman and attempting to interest her with a fast-talking line of patter is by no means restricted to pimps, but is a common mode of ghetto encounter. | |
| Property Of (1978) 22: You talk trash about the Property and we’ll punch your heart out. | |
| ‘Six in the Morning’ 🎵 Human lives has to pass just for talking much trash / We didn’t know who they were – No one had the time to ask. | |
| Straight Outta Compton 17: He was talking rhetoric. Talking trash. Throwing hype. | |
| Florida Roadkill 123: They still wanted to talk trash. | |
| (con. 1964–8) Cold Six Thousand 583: He’s talking trash. He’s saying our work’s dead. | |
| Plainclothes Naked (2002) 112: Manny could hear them from across the boulevard, talking trash. | |
| Deuce’s Wild 53: You really are some stupid ass motherfucker, comin’ in here and talkin’ trash. | |
| Devil All the Time 47: ‘[H]e damn near killed a man with his fists last fall for talking trash about his wife’. | |
| Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 133: [H]ave to tough out the rest a my sentence plus extra time in [...] one them super-skanky-ass joints that even folks in Ithaca be talking trash aboutg. |
SE in slang uses
In compounds
1. (US) a rickety old truck.
| Paradise Alley (1978) 24: I’m sick of rockin’ around in this trashcan. |
2. (US drugs) a small lidded plastic container used top contain powdered drugs, notably fentanyl.
| www.dea.gov 13 Aug. 🌐 [T]hese capsules of varying colors and sizes are called ‘trash cans.’ Sold as many different drugs, they are often haphazardly packed with fentanyl [...] DEA Washington and its partners have found them in Baltimore, D.C., New Jersey, and Philadelphia [since 2019]. |
In phrases
(US black) to have sexual intercourse; usu. to ejaculate.
| ‘Garbage Man’ 🎵 I need this good-lookin’ woman so she can empty my can [...] I need you to come back to me, honey, because my garbage can is overflowin’ [...] I don’t need the money, honey, I just need you to empty my trash. |