rubble
nounverbattested in dialogue
- //ˈɹʌb.əl//
The broken remains of an object, usually rock or masonry.
noun
- 1
The broken remains of an object, usually rock or masonry.
The main East Coast line from Edinburgh to Berwick was blocked at Cockburnspath and Grantshouse by flood water, which washed away part of an embankment, and by the collapse of about 300 tons of rubble on to the track.
The old boulevard now was a sagging ruin, waiting for the wreckers. … You'd have to loathe yourself vividly to be indifferent to such destruction or, worse, rejoice at the crushing of the locus of these middle-class settlements, glad that history had made rubble of them.
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
A mass or stratum of fragments of rock lying under the alluvium and derived from the neighbouring rock.
The overlying beds are composed of such calcareous rubble and flints, rudely stratified
- 3
The whole of the bran of wheat before it is sorted into pollard, bran, etc.
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English rouble, rubel, robel, robeil, from Anglo-Norman *robel (“bits of broken stone”). Presumably related to rubbish, originally of same meaning (waste material, bits of stone, rubble). Ultimately presumably from Old Norse rubba (“to huddle, crowd together, heap up", possibly also "to rub, scrape”), from Proto-Germanic *rubbōną (“to rub, scrape”), related to Proto-Germanic *reufaną (“to tear”), *raubōną (“to rob, steal, plunder”), perhaps via Old French robe (English rob (“steal”)) in sense of “plunder, destroy”; see also Middle English, Middle French -el.
verb
- 1
To break down into rubble.
Forms
- plural
- rubbles
- past tense
- rubbled
- past participle
- rubbled
- present participle
- rubbling
- third person singular
- rubbles
rubble · The broken remains of an object, usually rock or masonry.
Ruben · A male given name from Hebrew, variant of Reuben.ruby · A clear, deep, red variety of corundum, valued as a precious…Ruby · A female given name.