the.com/garbage can
A democracy where banana peels and love letters finally rot as equals.
means A container for holding household waste until it's collected or disposed of.
from A compound of two separately murky words. 'Garbage' entered English in the 1400s originally meaning the waste parts of an animal (entrails, giblets) before widening to refuse in general — its deeper roots are uncertain, possibly tangled up with Old French words for sifting or giblets. 'Can' goes back to Old English 'canne,' a cousin of German 'Kanne,' both meaning a container for liquids, which later stretched to cover any metal vessel, including the one you wheel to the curb.
- etymology
- named after garbage, meaning animal entrails, since medieval butchers
- capacity irony
- always exactly one inch too small for the bag
- raccoon tax
- functions as a nightly buffet for local wildlife
- civic milestone
- getting your own can was once a status symbol