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debris

noun
/ˈdɛbɹi/UK/dəˈbɹiː/US

Etymology

Borrowed from French débris, itself from dé- (“de-”) + bris (“broken, crumbled”), or from Middle French debriser (“to break apart”), from Old French debrisier, itself from de- + brisier (“to break apart, shatter, bust”), from Frankish *bristijan, *bristan, *brestan (“to break violently, shatter, bust”), from Proto-Germanic *brestaną (“to break, burst”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰrest- (“to separate, burst”). Cognate with Old High German bristan (“to break asunder, burst”), Old English berstan (“to break, shatter, burst”), German bersten (“to burst”). More at burst.

  1. derived from *bʰrest-✻ — “to separate, burst”
  2. derived from *brestaną✻ — “to break, burst”
  3. derived from *bristijan✻
  4. derived from debrisier
  5. derived from debriser — “to break apart”
  6. borrowed from débris

Definitions

  1. Rubble, wreckage, scattered remains of something destroyed.

    • His neighbors were still ripping out debris. But Mr. Ryan, a retired bricklayer who built his house by hand 30 years ago only to lose most of it to Hurricane Sandy, was already hard at work rebuilding.

  2. Litter and discarded refuse.

  3. Large rock fragments left by a melting glacier etc.

The neighborhood

Derived

biodebris, cellular debris, debris basin, debris field, debris mortar, debris response area, debrite, palynodebris, space debris

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at debris. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01debris02litter03thatch04buildings05building06walls07wall08rampart

A definitional loop anchored at debris. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

8 hops · closes at debris

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA