debris

UK/ˈdɛbɹi/US/dəˈbɹiː/

nounC1Common in everyday speech and writing · #4,729 of 15,258neutral

Debris is scattered broken pieces left after destruction. Clear the debris, debris on the line, space debris.

The s is silent, since the word is French and kept its pronunciation. Space debris is now a serious problem, since a fragment in orbit travels fast enough to destroy a working satellite.

Definitions of debris

1noundebrisScattered broken pieces left after destruction.C1
“Rescue workers searched the debris of the collapsed building for survivors.”

debris is a rubble.

Remember it

The French is broken to bits. Debris is what is left lying around after things break: the pieces, and nothing whole.

hooks ontobreak

Where it comes from

French debris comes from debriser, to break apart.

Proto-Indo-European
*bʰrest- — to separate, burst
Proto-Germanic
*brestaną — to break, burst
Frankish
*bristijan
Old French
debrisier
Middle French
debriser — to break apart
French
débris
English, today
debris

Built from

dé- · French — de-
bris · French — broken, crumbled
brisier · Old French — to break apart, shatter, bust
*brestan · Proto-West Germanic — to break violently, shatter, bust

French débris, itself from dé- (“de-”) + bris (“broken, crumbled”), or from Middle French debriser (“to break apart”), from Old French debrisier, itself from de- + brisier (“to break apart, shatter, bust”), from Frankish bristijan, bristan, brestan (“to break violently, shatter, bust”), from Proto-Germanic brestaną (“to break, burst”), from Proto-Indo-European bʰrest- (“to separate, burst”). Cognate with Old High German bristan (“to break asunder, burst”), Old English berstan (“to break, shatter, burst”), German bersten (“to burst”). More at burst.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

debris in the wild

Several spacecraft, both crewed and un-crewed, have been damaged or destroyed by space debris.
Space debris
Satellite debris that is in a Molniya orbit, such as the Kosmos Oko series, might be too high above the Northern Hemisphere to be tracked.
Space debris
After metallic and rubber debris was recovered by Roswell Army Air Field personnel, the United States Army Air Forces announced possession of a "flying disc".
Roswell incident
To obscure the purpose and source of the debris, the army reported that it was merely a conventional weather balloon.
Roswell incident
Depending on context, debris can refer to a number of different things.
Debris

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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