trash [E16th] Trash was originally a word for various kinds of refuse or things of little value including cuttings from a hedge and worn-out shoes. People have called others trash since the early 17th century—Shakespeare wrote in Othello ‘I do suspect this trash / To be a party in this injury’; and in the USA white trash [E19th] is a derogatory term for poor white people living in the southern states. The verb is first recorded in the mid 18th century in the sense ‘strip (sugar canes) of their outer leaves to encourage faster ripening’; the other senses (‘vandalize’, ‘impair the quality of something’) date from the 20th century. Trashy has been in use since the early 17th century.