different between rubble vs detritus

English

Etymology

From Middle English rouble, rubel, robel, robeil, from Anglo-Norman *robel (“bits of broken stone”). Presumably related to rubbish, originally of same meaning (bits of stone). Ultimately presumably from Proto-Germanic *raub- (“to break”), perhaps via Old French robe (English rob (“steal”)) in sense of “plunder, destroy”; see also Middle English, Middle French -el.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /???b.?l/
• Rhymes: -?b?l

Noun

rubble (countable and uncountable, plural rubbles)

1. The broken remains of an object, usually rock or masonry.
   • 1975, Saul Bellow, Humboldt's Gift [Avon ed., 1976, p. 72]:

     The old boulevard now was a sagging ruin, waiting for the wreckers. … You'd have to loathe yourself vividly to be indifferent to such destruction or, worse, rejoice at the crushing of the locus of these middle-class settlements, glad that history had made rubble of them.
2. (geology) A mass or stratum of fragments of rock lying under the alluvium and derived from the neighbouring rock.
   • 1855, Sir Charles Lyell, A Manual of Elementary Geology

     The overlying beds are composed of such calcareous rubble and flints, rudely stratified

3. (Britain, dialect, in the plural) The whole of the bran of wheat before it is sorted into pollard, bran, etc..

Derived terms

• reduce to rubble
• rubblestone
• rubblework

Related terms

• rubbish

Translations

References

Anagrams

• beblur, burble, lubber, rebulb

English

Etymology

From Latin d?tr?tus (“the act of rubbing away”), from d?ter? (“rub away”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /d??t?a?t?s/
• Rhymes: -a?t?s

Noun

detritus (usually uncountable, plural detritus or detrita)

1. (countable, chiefly geology) Pieces of rock broken off by ice, glacier, or erosion.
2. (biology, ecology) Organic waste material from decomposing dead plants or animals.
   • 2009, Christian Wirth, Gerd Gleixner, Martin Heimann, Old-Growth Forests: Function, Fate and Value, Springer Science & Business Media (?ISBN), page 159:

     Woody detritus is an important component of forested ecosystems. It can reduce erosion and affects soil development, stores nutrients and water, provides a major source of energy and nutrients, and serves as a seedbed for plants and as a major habitat for decomposers and hetereotrophs.

3. (by extension) Any debris or fragments of disintegrated material.

Derived terms

• detrital / detritic
• detritivore
• zoodetritus

Translations

Further reading

• detritus on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Latin

Etymology

From d?ter? (“rub away”), from d? (“away”) + ter? (“rub”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /de??tri?.tus/, [d?e??t??i?t??s?]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /de?tri.tus/, [d???t??i?t?us]

Participle

d?tr?tus (feminine d?tr?ta, neuter d?tr?tum); first/second-declension participle

1. rubbed away, worn away, worn out, having been rubbed away
2. (figuratively) diminished in force, lessened, weakened, impaired, having been weakened
3. (figuratively) worn out, trite, hackneyed, having been worn out

Declension

First/second-declension adjective.

Noun

d?tr?tus m (genitive d?tr?t?s); fourth declension

1. The act of rubbing away

Declension

Fourth-declension noun.

Related terms

• d?ter?
• d?tr?ment?sus
• d?tr?mentum

Descendants

References

• detritus in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• detritus in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• detritus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette

Romanian

Etymology

From French détritus, from Latin detritus.

Noun

detritus n (uncountable)

1. detritus

Declension

Spanish

Noun

detritus m (plural detritus)

1. detritus