litter
/ˈlɪt.ɚ/ noun B2- Straw, grass, and similar loose material used as bedding for people or animals.
- Animal bedding together with its dung.
- A mobile bed or couch transported upon or suspended from poles placed over human shoulders or animal backs.
- Synonym of stretcher, such a vehicle used for transporting the sick and injured, inclusive of designs carried in the hand.
- Any of the other similar conveyances, such as sedan chairs, hammock litters, and the like.
- The whole group of live young born at the same time, typically in reference to mammals or (figurative, derogatory) unpleasant people or objects. · The runt of the litter is the smallest or weakest of a group of puppies born together.
- Waste or debris, originally any mess but now particularly trash left or thrown on the ground. · Near-synonyms: garbage; see also Thesaurus:trash· What are you doing?! There's a litter bin not three feet away.
- A bed, a substrate formed from loose materials.
Plural litters
From the library
There, in the warm litter above the melons, very cunningly hidden, he found twenty-five eggs, about the size of a bantam’s eggs, but with whitish skin instead of shell.
He bit off the tops of the eggs as fast as he could, taking care to crush the young cobras, and turned over the litter from time to time to see whether he had missed any.
The Wild Sow, whom you see daily digging up the earth, wishes to uproot the oak, so she may on its fall seize our families as food for her young.” Having thus frightened the Eagle out of her senses, she crept down to the cave of the Sow, and said, “Your children are in great danger; for as soon as you go out with your litter to find food, the Eagle is prepared to pounce upon one of your little pigs.” Having instilled these fears into the Sow, she went and pretended to hide herself in the hollow of the tree.
“And leave the litter as it is?” he cried, mischievously.
Other matches
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