What is dustbin?

Dear Editor,

Easy Cleaning: No need to ever lift when cleaning. Just pull out the front crumb tray and tip it into the dustbin.

In the process of reading reviews on toasters, I found the above description of a feature of one brand of this appliance.

The word that stood out to me was dustbin. I thought its use was delightful and hinted at the homeland of the writer.

Do you know what a dustbin is?

Maybe you can hazard a guess by how it’s used in the sentence.

Dustbin is said to be a common word in British English meaning a container that you keep outside and use for putting rubbish in.

The American English word is garbage can or trash can.

According to the Oxford English dictionary, the earliest evidence for dustbin is from 1847, in the writing of Charles Dickens, novelist.

In the words of Paul Harvey (radio broadcaster for more than 7 decades) ”Now you know the rest of the story.”

Eileen Z. Fitzsimons

Dodgeville, WI