Rubble

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈrÊŒb.É™l/
• Rhymes: -ÊŒbÉ™l
• Rhymes: -ÊŒdÉ™l

Origin

Anglo-Norman *robel ("bits of broken stone"). Presumably related to rubbish, originally of same meaning (bits of stone).

Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition

Ultimately presumably from Proto-Germanic *raub- ("to break"), perhaps via Old French robe (English rob ("steal")) in sense of “plunder, destroy”;

Online Etymology Dictionary

see also Middle English, Middle French -el.

Full definition of rubble

Noun

1. The broken remains of an object, usually rock or masonry.
• 2013-06-29, High and wet, Floods in northern India, mostly in the small state of Uttarakhand, have wrought disaster on an enormous scale....Rock-filled torrents smashed vehicles and homes, burying victims under rubble and sludge.
2. (geology) A mass or stratum of fragments of rock lying under the alluvium and derived from the neighbouring rock.
3. (UK, 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

Anagrams

• burble
• lubber