detritus
noun
Michael Tomasky
Did you know?
If you use detritus in speech, remember to stress the second syllable, as you do in the words arthritis and bronchitis. Once you've mastered its meaning and pronunciation, you’ll find that detritus is a term—originally a geology term referring to loose material, such as broken rock fragments, resulting from disintegration—that can be applied in many situations. After the first hard freeze of fall, gardens are littered with the detritus of summer’s plants and produce: stalks, leaves, vines, and maybe even an abandoned hand trowel. As a flood-swollen river retreats to its banks, it leaves detritus—debris gathered by the raging waters—in its wake. The detritus of civilization may include junkyards and abandoned buildings, while mental detritus may include all kinds of useless trivia. (We’re not saying it qualifies as such, but detritus comes from the Latin root deterere, meaning “to wear away, impair.”)
Did you know?
How Do You Pronounce detritus?
After the first hard freeze of fall, gardens are sadly littered with the detritus of the summer's plants and produce: stalks, leaves, vines, rotted vegetables, and maybe even a hand trowel left behind. As the flooding Mississippi River retreats back to its ordinary course, it leaves detritus behind in its wake, debris gathered from everywhere by the raging waters. The detritus of civilization may include junkyards and abandoned buildings; mental detritus may include all kinds of useless trivia. Notice how this word is pronounced; for some reason, people often try to accent the first syllable rather than the second.
Synonyms
Examples of detritus in a Sentence
Jennifer Barger, Washington Post, 10 Apr. 2024
The Barbie pig grazes upon the small amounts of detritus that descend from surface waters to the seabed and are important in terms of cycling organic matter, explained Drennan, who wasn’t directly involved in the expedition.
—Katie Hunt, CNN, 3 Apr. 2024
The designers of This Discord Has Ghosts in It, Will Jobst and Adam Vass, set out to re-create a specific kind of detritus that shapes our experience and communication on the internet: the IRC messages, the C-boxes, the replies and DMs that linger online long after a conversation is done.
—Camille Butera, WIRED, 1 Apr. 2024
The floor is littered with the general detritus of parenting — diaper boxes, unopened Amazon packages, tiny hot-pink Crocs.
—Ej Dickson, Rolling Stone, 19 Mar. 2024
His models carried grocery bags, yoga mats, and other detritus of everyday life.
—Laia Garcia-Furtado, Vogue, 6 Mar. 2024
From his garage to room after room, the house is packed with the detritus of fame adjacency.
—Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 12 Mar. 2024
Surrounded by the detritus of a Thanksgiving dinner, the woman was loading the dishwasher when a loud thump thundered through the house.
—Lisa Sanders, M.d., New York Times, 7 Mar. 2024
But this particular jumble of detritus has been rescued from oblivion and given a new home in the eternal archives of US history.
—Fintan O’Toole, The New York Review of Books, 11 Feb. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'detritus.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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Cite this Entry
“Detritus.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/detritus. Accessed 19 Apr. 2024.
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detritus
noun
Medical Definition
detritus
noun
-ˈtrī-ˌtüs
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