dregs
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]See dreg.
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]dregs pl (plural only)
- (collectively) The sediment settled at the bottom of a liquid; the lees in a container of unfiltered wine.
- (figuratively, the dregs) The worst and lowest part of something.
- the dregs of society
- I sat through the dregs of a long hectic evening.
- 1826, [Mary Shelley], chapter IX, in The Last Man. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC:
- Yet even now I had not drunk the bitter potion to the dregs; I was not yet persuaded of my loss; I did not yet feel in every pulsation, in every nerve, in every thought, that I remained alone of my race - that I was The Last Man.
Usage notes
[edit]- The singular form dreg is far less common, but the phrase to the last dreg still has currency.
Synonyms
[edit]- debris, deposit, draff, dross, exuviate, feculence, grounds, grouts, lees, loser, orts, outcast, rabble, refuse, residue, residuum, riffraff, rubbish, scum, sediment, settling, trash, trub
Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]settled sediment
|
the worst and lowest
|
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.