dross

UK/dɹɒs/

nounC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,148 of 15,258neutral

Dross is worthless matter left when something is refined. Skim off the dross, nothing but dross, separate gold from dross.

The literal sense is the scum on molten metal, which is skimmed and thrown away. The figurative use is common and dismissive, and calling a body of work dross says none of it was worth keeping.

Definitions of dross

1noundrossWorthless matter left when something is refined.C2
“After the gold was melted down, only a little grey dross was left in the pot.”

dross is a waste.

Where it comes from

Old English dros means dregs or sediment, from a Germanic root.

Proto-Germanic
*drōhs — dregs, sediment
Old English
drōs
Middle English
drosse
English, today
dross

Built from

drōsne · Old English — a ground, sediment, lees, dregs, dirt, ear wax
*drōhsnō · Proto-Germanic — dregs, sediment

From Middle English drosse, dros, from Old English drōs, from Proto-Germanic drōhs (“dregs, sediment”). Also compare Old English drōsna, drōsne (“a ground, sediment, lees, dregs, dirt, ear wax”), from Proto-Germanic drōhsnǭ, drōhsnō (“dregs, sediment”), derived from drōhs. Alternatively, this may be from dragjō + -snō “yeast, sediment”; compare dragjō (“yeast”), as if from drēcg + -sn. Ultimately from Proto-Indo-European dʰrā́ks (“sediment, yeast”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

dross in the wild

With wrought iron, hammering and later rolling remove some dross.
Dross
With tin and lead the dross can be removed by adding sodium hydroxide pellets, which dissolve the oxides and form a slag.
Dross
Sometimes spelled Dross, the term derives from Middle High German trosse, from French trousse ("kit"); it is not related to English dross.
Tross
In 2007, the Manchester Evening News described the tune as "another corking chart hit that stands as a beacon amongst the dross of the 1980s".
Five Get Over Excited
Aluminium dross, a byproduct of the aluminium smelting process, can be mechanically recycled to separate the residual aluminium metal from the aluminium oxide.
Aluminium dross recycling

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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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