litter
Meanings
Plural: litters
Noun
- the offspring at one birth of a multiparous mammal
- rubbish carelessly dropped or left about (especially in public places)
- conveyance consisting of a chair or bed carried on two poles by bearers
- material used to provide a bed for animals
- Straw, grass, and similar loose material used as bedding for people or animals.
- A bed, especially a pile of straw with blankets &c. used as a bed.
- A mobile bed or couch transported upon or suspended from poles placed over human shoulders or animal backs.
- Synonym of stretcher, such a vehicle used for transporting the sick and injured, inclusive of designs carried in the hand.
- A mobile bed or couch transported upon or suspended from poles placed over human shoulders or animal backs.
- The general category of all such similar vehicles, inclusive of sedan chairs, hammock litters, and the like.
- A mobile bed or couch transported upon or suspended from poles placed over human shoulders or animal backs.
- An act of giving birth to a number of live young at the same time.
- Synonym of straw, grass, &c. more generally, particularly in plaster, thatch, and mulch.
- The whole group of live young born at the same time, typically in reference to mammals or (figurative, derogatory) unpleasant people or objects.
- Waste or debris, originally any mess but now particularly trash left or thrown on the ground.
- Animal bedding together with its dung.
- A bed, a substrate formed from loose materials.
- The layer of fallen leaves and other loose organic material on the ground in a forest.
- Fuller's earth, clay pellets, wood chips, or other similar loose absorbent materials used for the waste of pet animals.
Verb
- strew
- "Cigar butts littered the ground"
- make a place messy by strewing garbage around
- give birth to a litter of animals
- To drop or throw trash without properly disposing of it (as discarding in public areas rather than trash receptacles).
- To scatter carelessly about.
- To strew (a place) with scattered articles.
- To give birth to, in the manner of animals.
- To produce a litter of young.
- To supply (cattle etc.) with litter; to cover with litter, as the floor of a stall.
- To be supplied with litter as bedding; to sleep or make one's bed in litter.
Adj
- comparative form of lit: more lit
Origin / Etymology
From Middle English litere, lytere, &c., from Anglo-Norman litere, litiere, &c., from Old French litiere (“bedding; bed of loose straw; litter”), from Late Latin lectuāria (“bedding; blankets”), from Latin lectus (“bed; couch”) + -āria (“forming related nouns”), from Proto-Italic *lektos (“[thing] lain upon”), from *leɣō (“to lie down”), from Proto-Indo-European *legʰ-. Cognate with French lit and litière.
Synonyms
&c. more generally, and mulch, bedding, bedding material, dooly, grass, inclusive of designs carried in the hand, lectica, nalki, palanquin, particularly in plaster, straw, stretcher, such a vehicle used for transporting the sick and injured, thatch, trash
Scrabble Score: 6
litter is a valid Scrabble (US) TWL wordlitter is a valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
litter is a valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary