garbo

See also: garbó and garbò

English

Etymology

Clipping of garbage +‎ -o (colloquialising suffix).

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Noun

garbo (countable and uncountable, plural garbos)

1. (countable, Australia, informal) A rubbish collector; a garbage man.
   • 1986, Emily George, Merri Lee: A Feminist Fantasy, page 124:

     Then believe it or not, I worked for some time as a garbo, collecting the rubbish in the wee hours of the morning.

   • 1998, Hall Greenland, Red Hot: The Life & Times of Nick Origlass, 1908-1996, page 253:

     The referendum papers, accompanied by a strong statement of Council′s position, was to be letterboxed by the Council′s “garbos” (rubbish collectors) and inspectors on a Thursday and collected by volunteers over the weekend.

   • 2010, Zana Fraillon, Monstrum House: Locked In, unnumbered page:

     As far as Jasper was concerned, his mum being a garbo was pretty cool. She got to drive a truck and be home in time to take his little sisters to school. Before she got the job as a rubbish collector, his mum had done shift work and it was left to Jasper to get his sisters to school.

   • 2010, Adam Shand, The Skull: Informers, Hit Men and Australia′s Toughest Cop, page 350:

     The priest would bring salvation while the garbo took the rubbish.

2. (Australia, Canada, US, uncountable, colloquial, derogatory) Garbage; something considered worthless.
   • 2012, Mickael Taddeo, Gabriel's Mountain, FriesenPress, →ISBN, page 229:

     "Any quartz in the Mountain?" / "Just garbo quartz, not enough to produce any electrical fields." / "No disruption in the magnetic field?" / "No, sir."

   • 2016, Clare Revell, Violets in February, Pelican Book Group, →ISBN:

     Then they beat me and burned me and locked me up, before handing me back like a piece of garbo, when I acted up or they got tired of me.

   • 2022 March 19, Dan Clarendon, “'Hogwarts Legacy' Will Reportedly Welcome Transgender Characters — You Hear That, J.K.?”, in Distractify‎^[1], archived from the original on 22 April 2022:

     Another Twitter user wrote, "I could lie to you and say that I'm totally not interested in that game [but] I am interested. It sucks so much that JKR is a transphobic piece of garbo. ... I think if I do play it, I'll make it clear in all promotions my feelings about JKR and also promote a trans charity for folks to donate their funds towards. Maybe it's not enough, and I might not have a lot of funds, but I do wanna use my voice to do what I can to support my trans friends."

   • 2022 December 7, Mike Bloom, quoting Sami Layadi, “'Survivor 43's' Sami Layadi Explains Why He Never Went After Cody and Jesse”, in Parade‎^[2], archived from the original on 8 December 2022:

     Then Noelle told me she's a Paralympian and I was like, "Well, my lie was just garbo. That was terrible. Noelle, you're a beast!"

Synonyms

• bin man (UK)
• dustman (UK)
• garbage collector (US, Canada)
• garbage man (Australia, US, Canada)
• refuse collector (UK)
• sanitation engineer (US, Canada)
• trashman (US, Canada)
• See Thesaurus:garbage collector

Anagrams

• Bargo, Bogar, Bogra, Gabor, gobar

Afar

Garbo.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡarˈbo/ [ɡʌɾˈbɔ]
• Hyphenation: gar‧bo

Noun

garbó f (plural gárab m or gárob m)

1. thicket

Declension

Declension of garbó
absolutive	garbó
predicative	garbó
subjective	garbó
genitive	garbó
Postpositioned forms l-case garból k-case garbók t-case garbót h-case garbóh

References

• E. M. Parker; R. J. Hayward (1985), “garbo”, in An Afar-English-French dictionary (with Grammatical Notes in English), University of London, →ISBN
• Marie-Claude Simeone-Senelle; Mohamed Hassan Kamil (August 2013), “Gender, Number and Agreement in Afar (Cushitic language)”, in 43rd Colloquium on African Languages and Linguistics‎^[3], Leiden: Leiden University

Catalan

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian garbo. Doublet of calibre and gàlib.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (Central) [ˈɡar.bu]
• IPA^(key): (Balearic) [ˈɡar.bo]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [ˈɡaɾ.bo]

Noun

garbo m (plural garbos)

1. grace
2. vigour

Derived terms

• desgarbat

Further reading

• “garbo”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2026

Esperanto

Etymology

Borrowed from German Garbe.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡarbo/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -arbo
• Syllabification: gar‧bo

Noun

garbo (accusative singular garbon, plural garboj, accusative plural garbojn)

1. sheaf
   • 1999, Anna Löwenstein, La ŝtona urbo, Antwerp: Flandra Esperanto-Ligo, →ISBN, →OCLC:

     Ni portis eksteren garbojn da pajlo kaj kovris nin per feloj, sub kiuj ni restis sufiĉe varmaj kaj sekaj.

     He carried out sheaves of straw and covered us with pelts, under which we stayed warm and dry enough.

Derived terms

• garbaro (“group of sheaves, shock”)
• garbejo (“granary”)
• garbigi (“to bind into sheaves”)

Italian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡar.bo/
• Rhymes: -arbo
• Hyphenation: gàr‧bo

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Old High German garwi (“dress; equipment; preparation”), from Proto-Germanic *garwijaną (“to prepare”). More at garb.

Alternatively, perhaps borrowed from Arabic قَالِب (qālib, “model, outline”), from Persian کالب (kâlob, “form, mold”), from Ancient Greek κᾱλοπόδιον (kālopódion, “shoemaker's block”), from κᾶλον (kâlon, “firewood, joiner's wood”) +‎ πούς (poús, “foot”) in which case possibly cognate with English galoshe.

Noun

garbo m (plural garbi)

1. politeness, gentleness, tact, grace

   Synonyms: educazione, gentilezza, tatto, grazia

2. graceful form
3. (nautical) curvature of the hull

Derived terms

• aggarbare
• garbare
• garbato

Related terms

• garbatezza

Descendants

• → Middle French: garbe
  • → English: garb
  • → Yola: garbe
  • French: galbe
    • → English: galbe
    • → Portuguese: galbo
• → Portuguese: garbo
• → Spanish: garbo

Further reading

• garbo³ in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana
• garbo in garzantilinguistica.it – Garzanti Linguistica, De Agostini Scuola Spa

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Verb

garbo

1. first-person singular present indicative of garbare

Anagrams

• brago

Portuguese

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian garbo.

Pronunciation

 

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈɡaʁ.bu/ [ˈɡaɦ.bu]

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈɡaʁ.bu/ [ˈɡaɦ.bu]
  • (São Paulo) IPA^(key): /ˈɡaɾ.bu/
  • (Rio de Janeiro) IPA^(key): /ˈɡaʁ.bu/
  • (Caipira) IPA^(key): /ˈɡaɻ.bu/
  • (Southern Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈɡaʁ.bo/ [ˈɡaɦ.bo]

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /ˈɡaɾ.bu/ [ˈɡaɾ.βu]

• Rhymes: -aɾbu
• Hyphenation: gar‧bo

Noun

garbo m (plural garbos)

1. grace, style, chic, elegance
2. daintiness
3. polish

Related terms

• garboso

Further reading

• “garbo”, in Dicionário Aulete Digital (in Portuguese), Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon Editora Digital, 2008–2026

Spanish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡaɾbo/ [ˈɡaɾ.β̞o]
• Rhymes: -aɾbo
• Syllabification: gar‧bo

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Italian garbo.

Noun

garbo m (plural garbos)

1. grace
2. style

Related terms

• garboso

Etymology 2

Verb

garbo

1. first-person singular present indicative of garbar

Further reading

• “garbo”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025

Tagalog

Etymology

Borrowed from Spanish garbo.

Pronunciation

• (Standard Tagalog) IPA^(key): /ˈɡaɾbo/ [ˈɡaɾ.bo]
• Rhymes: -aɾbo
• Syllabification: gar‧bo

Noun

garbo (Baybayin spelling ᜄᜇ᜔ᜊᜓ)

1. gracefulness; elegance

   Synonyms: kisig, kakisigan

2. dressiness

   Synonyms: gara, kagaraan

Derived terms

• kagarbuhan
• magarbo