Trashy

How to spell trashy

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce trashy

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does trashy mean?

1. adjectiveOf very poor quality, cheap, or in bad taste.

Trashy in a sentence

• The hotel room was furnished with trashy plastic ornaments.

• She admitted to enjoying a trashy paperback on the beach.

Where does trashy come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

This is the adjective form of the noun 'trash', built simply by adding the everyday suffix '-y' that turns a noun into an adjective meaning 'full of' or 'resembling'. The noun 'trash' first appears in English in the 1500s, originally describing broken twigs, hedge clippings, and other plant debris swept aside, before it broadened to mean rubbish and refuse of any kind. Its deeper origin is genuinely uncertain, but the best guess points to a Scandinavian source, since dialect words such as the Norwegian 'trask', meaning lumber, rubbish, or fallen leaves, sit close to it in both sound and sense. By the 1700s 'trashy' was being used figuratively for anything cheap, worthless, or of contemptibly poor quality, and that critical, dismissive flavour is the meaning that dominates today. The spelling is mercifully regular: the only thing to remember is that adding '-y' to 'trash' keeps the 'sh' intact and never doubles a letter.

How the word is built

• trash (refuse, rubbish)
• -y (adjective suffix: full of, resembling)