litter

Plural: litters

Noun

• the offspring at one birth of a multiparous mammal
• rubbish carelessly dropped or left about (especially in public places)
• conveyance consisting of a chair or bed carried on two poles by bearers
• material used to provide a bed for animals
• Straw, grass, and similar loose material used as bedding for people or animals.
• A bed, especially a pile of straw with blankets &c. used as a bed.
• A mobile bed or couch transported upon or suspended from poles placed over human shoulders or animal backs.
• A mobile bed or couch transported upon or suspended from poles placed over human shoulders or animal backs.
• Synonym of stretcher, such a vehicle used for transporting the sick and injured, inclusive of designs carried in the hand.
• A mobile bed or couch transported upon or suspended from poles placed over human shoulders or animal backs.
• The general category of all such similar vehicles, inclusive of sedan chairs, hammock litters, and the like.
• An act of giving birth to a number of live young at the same time.
• Synonym of straw, grass, &c. more generally, particularly in plaster, thatch, and mulch.
• The whole group of live young born at the same time, typically in reference to mammals or (figurative, derogatory) unpleasant people or objects.
• Waste or debris, originally any mess but now particularly trash left or thrown on the ground.
• Animal bedding together with its dung.
• A bed, a substrate formed from loose materials.
• The layer of fallen leaves and other loose organic material on the ground in a forest.
• Fuller's earth, clay pellets, wood chips, or other similar loose absorbent materials used for the waste of pet animals.

Verb

Verb Forms: littered, littering, litters

• To scatter objects or rubbish untidily over a surface.
• strew
  • "Cigar butts littered the ground"
• make a place messy by strewing garbage around
• give birth to a litter of animals
• To drop or throw trash without properly disposing of it (as discarding in public areas rather than trash receptacles).
• To scatter carelessly about.
• To strew (a place) with scattered articles.
• To give birth to, in the manner of animals.
• To produce a litter of young.
• To supply (cattle etc.) with litter; to cover with litter, as the floor of a stall.
• To be supplied with litter as bedding; to sleep or make one's bed in litter.

Adj

• comparative form of lit: more lit

Examples

• By tossing the bottle out the window, he was littering.
• Change the cat litter fer chrissakes. This place reeks.
• Forest animals use leaf litter in a variety of ways, including as food, shelter, nesting material, bedding, and camouflage.
• He’d litter the board with short, low-value words, hoping to block his opponent’s progress.
• The runt of the litter is the smallest or weakest of a group of puppies born together.
• What are you doing?! There's a litter bin not three feet away.

Synonyms

bedding, bedding material, &c. more generally, and mulch, dooly, grass, inclusive of designs carried in the hand, lectica, nalki, palanquin, particularly in plaster, straw, stretcher, such a vehicle used for transporting the sick and injured, thatch, trash

Anagrams of litter