Debris
Pronunciation
- UK IPA: /ˈdÉ›bɹiË/, /ˈdeɪbɹiË/
- US IPA: /dəˈbɹiË/
Alternative forms
Origin
Borrowing from fr {{2}} 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 *brestan ("to break violently, shatter, bust"), from Proto-Germanic *brestaną ("to break, burst"), from Proto-Indo-European *bhrest- ("to separate, burst"). Cogante with Old High German bristan ("to break asunder, burst"), Old English berstan ("to break, shatter, burst"). More at burst.
Full definition of debris
Noun
debris
(uncountable)- Rubble, wreckage, scattered remains of something destroyed.
- 2012, December 21, David M. Halbfinger, Charles V. Bagli and Sarah Maslin Nir, On Ravaged Coastline, It’s Rebuild Deliberately vs. Rebuild Now, 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.
- Litter and discarded refuse.
- 2013-07-20, Welcome to the plastisphere, researchers noticed many of their pieces of marine debris sported surface pits around two microns across. Such pits are about the size of a bacterial cell. Closer examination showed that some of these pits did, indeed, contain bacteria, ….
- The ruins of a broken-down structure
- (geology) Large rock fragments left by a melting glacier etc.