Adjacent Words

Dregs definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

DREGS, n. Plu. [Gr.]
1. The sediment of liquors; lees; grounds; feculence; any foreign matter of liquors that subsides to the bottom of a vessel.
2. Waste or worthless matter; dross; sweepings; refuse. Hence, the most vile and despicable part of men; as the dregs of society.
Dreg, in the singular, is found in Spenser, but is not now used.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: sediment that has settled at the bottom of a liquid [syn: dregs, settlings]

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

1. The dregs of a liquid are the last drops left at the bottom of a container, together with any solid bits that have sunk to the bottom. Colum drained the dregs from his cup. N-PLURAL: usu the N [disapproval] 2. If you talk about the dregs of society or of a community, you mean the people in it who you consider to be the most worthless and bad. He sees dissidents as the dregs of society. N-PLURAL: usu the N of n [disapproval]

Easton's Bible Dictionary

(Ps. 75:8; Isa. 51:17, 22), the lees of wine which settle at the bottom of the vessel.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

dregs: The "sediments," "lees," "grounds of liquor"; only in plural. In the King James Version it stands for:

(1) Hebrew qubba`ath, "bowl," "chalice," found only in Isa 51:17,22: "the dregs of the cup of trembling"; "the dregs of the cup of my fury." the Revised Version (British and American) correctly changes "dregs" into "bowl."

(2) Hebrew shemarim, "sediments" or "dregs," especially lees of wine. "The dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring (the American Standard Revised Version "drain") them out and drink them" (Ps 75:8), i.e. God gives to the wicked the cup of wrathful judgment, which they must drink to the last drop.

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. pl. 1. Sediment, lees, grounds, draff, feculence. 2. Dross, scum, refuse, draff.

Moby Thesaurus

alluvion, alluvium, ash, bones, canaille, cattle, chaff, children of darkness, cinder, clinker, culm, deadwood, deposit, deposition, deposits, diluvium, dishwater, draff, dregs of society, dross, dust, ember, feces, filings, froth, garbage, gash, grounds, hogwash, husks, leavings, lees, limbs of Satan, loess, losers, masses, mob, moraine, offal, offscourings, offscum, orts, outcasts, pariahs, parings, potsherds, precipitate, precipitation, proletariat, rabble, raff, rags, ragtag and bobtail, raspings, refuse, remains, residue, riffraff, rubbish, scoria, scourings, scrap iron, scraps, scum, sediment, settlings, shards, shavings, silt, sinter, slack, slag, slop, slops, smut, sons of Belial, sons of men, soot, sordes, stubble, sublimate, sweepings, swill, swinish multitude, tares, the bad, the evil, the reprobate, the unrighteous, the wicked, trash, unwashed, vermin, wastage, waste, waste matter, wastepaper, weeds