Litter

How to spell litter

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce litter

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does litter mean?

1. nounWaste paper, wrappers, and similar rubbish left lying carelessly in a public place.
2. nounA group of young animals born to one mother at the same time.
3. nounAbsorbent material placed in a tray or pen for an animal to use as bedding or a toilet.
4. verbTo leave rubbish or objects scattered untidily over a place.

Litter in a sentence

• noun

  Volunteers spent the morning clearing litter from the riverbank.

• noun

  The spaniel gave birth to a litter of six puppies.

• noun

  She changed the cat litter in the tray every other day.

• verb

  Signs warn visitors not to litter in the national park.

• noun

  The council fined him for dropping litter outside the station.

• noun

  Every kitten in the litter found a new home within a month.

Where does litter come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin lectus, meaning simply 'a bed', which passed into Medieval Latin as lectaria, 'a portable couch'. English borrowed it through the Old French litiere around the 1300s, when a 'litter' was a curtained bed slung between poles and carried by servants or animals. The meaning then drifted downward through the bedding itself: the straw spread on the floor for animals to lie on came to be called litter, and from there the word naturally extended to the young animals born on that bedding, hence a 'litter' of puppies. Because scattered straw lay strewn about untidily, the word eventually picked up its modern sense of rubbish carelessly dropped in a public place. The doubled 't' is the spelling trap, since the short vowel and the casual everyday feel of the word tempt some writers to drop a letter.

How the word is built

• litter (from Latin lectus: bed, via Old French litiere), with the doubled -tt- preserving the short 'i' sound