dreck
See also: Dreck and dréck
English
Alternative forms
- drek
Etymology
From Yiddish דרעק (drek, “dirt, crap”), from Middle High German drek, from Old High German *threc (in mūsthrec), from Proto-West Germanic *þraki, from Proto-Germanic *þrakjaz, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)terǵ-, *(s)terḱ-, *(s)treḱ- (“manure, dung; to sully, soil, decay”). Compare Cimbrian drèkh (“excrement, manure”), Dutch drek (“dung; semi-liquid filth; mud”), German Dreck (“dirt; filth”), Latin stercus (“dung, manure”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /d͡ʒɹɛk/
Audio (Southern England) (file) - Rhymes: -ɛk
Noun
dreck (uncountable)
- (informal) Trash; worthless merchandise.
- Synonyms: crap, junk, trash; see also Thesaurus:trash
- 2018 August 2, Kara Swisher, “The Expensive Education of Mark Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley”, in New York Times:
- Unfortunately, the conversation soon turned into a late-night freshman-year dorm-room debate, as he stumbled into a controversy of his own making by using Holocaust deniers and their appalling falsehoods as an example of how much dreck should be allowed on the platform.
Derived terms
- dreckish
- drecky