Sweepings are the dust and rubbish gathered by a broom. Floor sweepings, throw out the sweepings, a pile of sweepings.
The word is plural only. The figurative use is contemptuous and old, since calling people the sweepings of anywhere says they were what was left when everybody worth having had gone.
1nounsweepingsThe dust and rubbish gathered by a broom.
“She tipped the dustpan of sweepings into the bin.”
sweepings is a rubbish.
sweeping by surface analysis, sweep + -ing.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire