Sekirov Dictionary

litter

/ˈlɪt.ɚ/

noun 13
verb 7
forms 3
phrases 2

noun13

•
Waste or debris, originally any mess but now particularly trash left or thrown on the ground.
- What are you doing?! There's a litter bin not three feet away.
•
The whole group of live young born at the same time, typically in reference to mammals or (figurative, derogatory) unpleasant people or objects.
- The runt of the litter is the smallest or weakest of a group of puppies born together.
•
Fuller's earth, clay pellets, wood chips, or other similar loose absorbent materials used for the waste of pet animals.
- Change the cat litter fer chrissakes. This place reeks.
•
The layer of fallen leaves and other loose organic material on the ground in a forest.
- Forest animals use leaf litter in a variety of ways, including as food, shelter, nesting material, bedding, and camouflage.
A mobile bed or couch transported upon or suspended from poles placed over human shoulders or animal backs.
•
Any of the other similar conveyances, such as sedan chairs, hammock litters, and the like.
- When they went out, they sat in litters, which were curtained. — 1922
Synonym of stretcher, such a vehicle used for transporting the sick and injured, inclusive of designs carried in the hand.
Straw, grass, and similar loose material used as bedding for people or animals.
•
Animal bedding together with its dung.
- Silkworms... must be well cleansed from the litter. — 1835
•
A bed, a substrate formed from loose materials.
- Having first made a litter of shingles, planks or billets, with a layer of charcoal powder several inches in thickness... — 1848
(no longer used) Synonym of straw, grass, etc. more generally, particularly in plaster, thatch, and mulch.
(no longer used) A bed, especially a pile of straw (sometimes also with blankets) used as a bed.
•
(no longer used) An act of giving birth to a number of live young at the same time.
- Let new planted Elms be kept moist by frequent refreshings upon some half-rotten Fern, or Litter laid about the foot of the stem... — 1664

verb7

•
To drop or throw trash without properly disposing of it (as discarding in public areas rather than trash receptacles).
- By tossing the bottle out the window, he was littering.
To scatter carelessly about.
•
To strew (a place) with scattered articles.
- Their Clamour, 'lighting from their Chairs, / Grew lowder, all the way up Stairs; / At Entrance louder, where they found, / The Room with Volumes litter'd round; […] — 1726
•
To give birth to, in the manner of animals.
- We might conceive that dogs were created blind, because we observe they were littered so with us. — 1650
•
To produce a litter of young.
- A desert […] where the she-wolf still littered. — 1849
•
To supply (cattle etc.) with litter; to cover with litter, as the floor of a stall.
- Tell them how they litter their jades. — 1693
•
To be supplied with litter as bedding; to sleep or make one's bed in litter.
- The inn where he and his horse litter'd. — 1634

forms

littered · littering · litters

Phrases with litter

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