Library / English Dictionary

DISCARD

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Getting rid something that is regarded as useless or undesirable

Synonyms:

discard; throwing away

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("discard" is a kind of...):

abandonment (the voluntary surrender of property (or a right to property) without attempting to reclaim it or give it away)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "discard"):

staging (getting rid of a stage of a multistage rocket)

Derivation:

discard (throw or cast away)

Sense 2

Meaning:

(cards) the act of throwing out a useless card or of failing to follow suit

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("discard" is a kind of...):

abandonment (the voluntary surrender of property (or a right to property) without attempting to reclaim it or give it away)

Domain category:

card game; cards (a game played with playing cards)

Holonyms ("discard" is a part of...):

card game; cards (a game played with playing cards)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Anything that is cast aside or discarded

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Hypernyms ("discard" is a kind of...):

object; physical object (a tangible and visible entity; an entity that can cast a shadow)

Derivation:

discard (throw or cast away)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Throw or cast away

Example:

Put away your worries

Synonyms:

cast aside; cast away; cast out; chuck out; discard; dispose; fling; put away; throw away; throw out; toss; toss away; toss out

Classified under:

Verbs of buying, selling, owning

Hypernyms (to "discard" is one way to...):

get rid of; remove (dispose of)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "discard"):

unlearn (discard something previously learnt, like an old habit)

deep-six; give it the deep six (toss out; get rid of)

jettison (throw away, of something encumbering)

junk; scrap; trash (dispose of (something useless or old))

waste (get rid of)

dump (throw away as refuse)

retire (dispose of (something no longer useful or needed))

abandon (forsake, leave behind)

liquidize; sell out; sell up (sell or get rid of all one's merchandise)

de-access (dispose of by selling)

close out (terminate by selling off or disposing of)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

discard (getting rid something that is regarded as useless or undesirable)

discard (anything that is cast aside or discarded)

Credits

 Context examples: 

The fluid which runs through a dialysis machine and captures, for discard or analysis, the excess water and waste from the blood stream through diffusion and ultrafiltration.

(Dialysis Fluid, NCI Thesaurus)

The two older girls were a great deal to one another, but each took one of the younger sisters into her keeping and watched over her in her own way, 'playing mother' they called it, and put their sisters in the places of discarded dolls with the maternal instinct of little women.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I discard it.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

He usually continues in office till a worse can be found; but the very moment he is discarded, his successor, at the head of all the Yahoos in that district, young and old, male and female, come in a body, and discharge their excrements upon him from head to foot.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

When Edward's unhappy match takes place, depend upon it his mother will feel as much as if she had never discarded him; and, therefore every circumstance that may accelerate that dreadful event, must be concealed from her as much as possible.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

The meeting has heard that a laser using energy from light radiation to move discarded objects in space could be ready for use within a year.

(Australia Developing Lasers to Track, Destroy Space Junk, VOA)

She cried in general, and she cried in particular over each discarded thing.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

He broke off and began to walk up and down a desolate path of fruit rinds and discarded favors and crushed flowers.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)