dross

(drŏs, drôs)

1. Waste or impure matter: discarded the dross after recycling the wood pulp.

2. The scum that forms on the surface of molten metal as a result of oxidation.

3. Worthless, commonplace, or trivial matter: "He was wide-awake and his mind worked clearly, purged of all dross" (Vladimir Nabokov).

[Middle English dros, from Old English drōs, dregs.]

dross′y adj.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

drossy

adjective

Lacking all worth and value:

good-for-nothing, inutile, no-good, valueless, worthless.

Informal: no-account.

Slang: nothing.

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References in periodicals archive

What makes for passionate engagement where the 'dance' and 'dancer' are one, where learning is redeemed from drossy dutiful compliance in the expectation of the rewards of some future far-off outcomes.

Among (21st) century schoolchildren: The 'new literateurs' A response to 'New Literacies' in the middle years

No, miladi, drossy Art's atabal--by Rome, Melba, cover!" 3 9) Nurse ye no yen o' melody, Rana Cyrano-- 3 On a limb, Elban, I pistol ecotone tone dun!

Howard Bergerson's Surprise Symphony

(46) Following this culturally available logic, Iago's speech posits a jewel-like "good name" as not only more valuable than a drossy "purse," but as belonging to a completely different order of value: spiritual rather than material, "of the soul" rather than of the world.

Jewel, purse, trash: reckoning and reputation in Othello

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