name, noun ·2 syllables ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A person employed to collect refuse from people's homes and take it to be processed. British

   "Oh, my old man's a dustman He wears a dustman’s hat He wears cor-blimey trousers And he lives in a council flat."

2. 2
   a man employed to collect and dispose of refuse wordnet

Proper Noun

1. 1
   A surname from German.

Synonyms

All synonyms

garbage mangarbage manbin manbin manbinmandustwoman

Example

More examples

"Tom used to be a teacher. Now he makes his living as a dustman."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From dust + -man, as household refuse previously consisted largely of ashes (dust) from domestic fires.

Etymology 2

Variant spelling of Northern German Dustmann.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.