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Debris

//dəˈbɹiː// noun

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Rubble, wreckage, scattered remains of something destroyed. uncountable

    "His neighbors were still ripping out debris. But Mr. Ryan, a retired bricklayer who built his house by hand 30 years ago only to lose most of it to Hurricane Sandy, was already hard at work rebuilding."

  2. 2
    the remains of something that has been destroyed or broken up wordnet
  3. 3
    Litter and discarded refuse. uncountable

    "[The researchers] noticed many of their pieces of [plastic marine] debris sported surface pits around two microns across. Such pits are about the size of a bacterial cell. Closer examination showed that some of these pits did, indeed, contain bacteria, […]."

  4. 4
    The ruins of a broken-down structure. uncountable
  5. 5
    Large rock fragments left by a melting glacier etc. uncountable

Etymology

Borrowed from French débris, itself from dé- (“de-”) + bris (“broken, crumbled”), or from Middle French debriser (“to break apart”), from Old French debrisier, itself from de- + brisier (“to break apart, shatter, bust”), from Frankish *bristijan, *bristan, *brestan (“to break violently, shatter, bust”), from Proto-Germanic *brestaną (“to break, burst”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰrest- (“to separate, burst”). Cognate with Old High German bristan (“to break asunder, burst”), Old English berstan (“to break, shatter, burst”), German bersten (“to burst”). More at burst.

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