Discard

How to spell discard

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce discard

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does discard mean?

1. verbTo throw away or get rid of something no longer wanted or useful.
2. nounA thing, especially a playing card, that has been thrown away or rejected.

Discard in a sentence

• verb

  Please discard any paperwork older than seven years.

• noun

  She drew a fresh card from the top of the discard pile.

• verb

  The recipe says to discard the outer leaves before cooking.

• noun

  The old sofa ended up on the discard heap behind the shop.

Where does discard come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word grew out of the card table. It joins the prefix dis-, meaning 'away' or 'apart', to 'card', the playing card, which itself traces back through Old French carte to the Latin charta, a leaf of papyrus or paper. When it first appeared in English in the late 1500s, to discard literally meant to throw unwanted cards out of one's hand during a game. From that very concrete gambling sense it broadened to mean rejecting or getting rid of anything no longer useful. The spelling trap lives in that hidden seam: the word is dis plus card, with a single 's', so writers who hear it as one smooth syllable sometimes hesitate over the join. The same charta root also gives us 'chart', 'charter', and 'cartography'.

How the word is built

• dis- (away, apart)
• card (a playing card, from Latin charta: a leaf of paper)