Debris

How to spell debris

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce debris

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does debris mean?

1. nounScattered fragments and rubble left after something has been broken, destroyed, or worn away.

Debris in a sentence

• Crews spent the morning clearing storm debris from the motorway.

• The explosion scattered debris across three city blocks.

Where does debris come from?

Language of origin: French

This word comes straight from the French débris, meaning broken or scattered remains, which was formed from the old verb débriser, 'to break apart' or 'to smash to pieces'. That verb combined the intensifying prefix dé- with briser, 'to break', a word ultimately of Celtic origin meaning to shatter. English adopted débris in the eighteenth century, at first often keeping the French accent before dropping it. The reason it remains such a spelling trap is that English preserved the French pronunciation, in which the final -s is silent, so the written word ends in a letter most speakers never hear. The same briser root also lies behind the brittle, breakable sense found in words like 'bruise', which helps explain why debris so consistently means things that have been broken up.

How the word is built

• From French débris; treated in English as a single unanalysed root (no productive prefix or suffix), with the silent final -s carried over from French