dreck
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
From Yiddish דרעק (drek, “dirt, crap”), from Middle High German drek, from Old High German *threc (in mūsthrec), from Proto-Germanic *þrakjaz, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)terǵ-, *(s)terḱ-, *(s)treḱ- (“manure, dung; to sully, soil, decay”). Compare Dutch drek (“dung; semi-liquid filth; mud”), German Dreck (“dirt; filth”), Latin stercus (“dung, manure”)
Pronunciation
Noun
dreck (uncountable)
- (informal) Trash; worthless merchandise.
- 2018 August 2, Kara Swisher, “The Expensive Education of Mark Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley”, in New York Times[1]:
- Unfortunately, the conversation soon turned into a late-night freshman-year dorm-room debate, as he stumbled into a controversy of his own making by using Holocaust deniers and their appalling falsehoods as an example of how much dreck should be allowed on the platform.
- The reviewer was worried that, were a certain host hired for the game show, he would begin giving away dreck for prizes instead of the good stuff they did for years.
Synonyms
- See: Thesaurus:trash
Derived terms
Categories:
- English terms borrowed from Yiddish
- English terms derived from Yiddish
- English terms derived from Middle High German
- English terms derived from Old High German
- English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English 1-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/ɛk
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English informal terms
- English terms with quotations
- English terms with usage examples