Litter vs. Garbage — What's the Difference?

Litter consists of waste products that have been discarded incorrectly, without consent, at an unsuitable location. Litter can also be used as a verb; to litter means to drop and leave objects, often man-made, such as aluminum cans, paper cups, food wrappers, cardboard boxes or plastic bottles on the ground, and leave them there indefinitely or for other people to dispose of as opposed to disposing of them correctly.

Garbage, trash, rubbish, or refuse is waste material that is discarded by humans, usually due to a perceived lack of utility. The term generally does not encompass bodily waste products, purely liquid or gaseous wastes, nor toxic waste products.

Rubbish such as paper, cans, and bottles left lying in an open or public place

Rubbish or waste, especially domestic refuse

A number of young animals born to an animal at one time

Food wastes, as from a kitchen.

Absorbent material, typically in granular form, used to line a shallow receptacle in which a cat can urinate and defecate when indoors

Refuse; trash.

Straw or other plant matter used as bedding for animals

A place or receptacle where rubbish is discarded

A structure used to transport people, containing a bed or seat enclosed by curtains and carried on men's shoulders or by animals.

Worthless or nonsensical matter; rubbish

Make (a place or area) untidy with rubbish or a large number of objects left lying about

Inferior or offensive literary or artistic material.

Provide (a horse or other animal) with litter as bedding.

Food waste material of any kind.

Carelessly discarded refuse, such as wastepaper

Useless or disposable material; waste material of any kind.

A disorderly accumulation of objects; a pile. “An iron washstand [stood] in the corner amidst a litter of soap and soiled towels” (Molly Gloss).

A place or receptacle for waste material.

The group of offspring produced at one birth by a mammal.

Nonsense; gibberish.

Material, such as straw, used as bedding for animals.

Something or someone worthless.

An absorbent material for covering the floor of an animal's cage or litterbox.

(obsolete) The bowels of an animal; refuse parts of flesh; offal.

An enclosed or curtained couch mounted on shafts and used to carry a single passenger.

An easy shot.

A flat supporting framework, such as a piece of canvas stretched between parallel shafts, for carrying a disabled or dead person; a stretcher.

To eviscerate

Fallen leaves and other decaying organic matter that make up the top layer of a forest floor.

(informal) bad, crap, shitty

To give birth to (a litter).

Offal, as the bowels of an animal or fish; refuse animal or vegetable matter from a kitchen; hence, anything worthless, disgusting, or loathsome.

To make untidy by discarding rubbish carelessly

To strip of the bowels; to clean.

To scatter about

Food that is discarded (as from a kitchen)

To be scattered about (an area)

A worthless message

To include certain items such as expressions throughout (a speech or piece of writing, for example)

A receptacle where garbage is discarded;

(Archaic) To supply (animals) with litter for bedding or floor covering.

To give birth to a litter.

To scatter litter.

(countable) A platform mounted on two shafts, or a more elaborate construction, designed to be carried by two (or more) people to transport one (in luxury models sometimes more) third person(s) or (occasionally in the elaborate version) a cargo, such as a religious idol.

The offspring of a mammal born in one birth.

(uncountable) Material used as bedding for animals.

(uncountable) Collectively, items discarded on the ground.

(uncountable) Absorbent material used in an animal's litter tray

(uncountable) Layer of fallen leaves and similar organic matter in a forest floor.

A covering of straw for plants.

(intransitive) To drop or throw trash without properly disposing of it (as discarding in public areas rather than trash receptacles).

(transitive) To scatter carelessly about.

(transitive) To strew (a place) with scattered articles.

(transitive) To give birth to, used of animals.

(intransitive) To produce a litter of young.

(transitive) To supply (cattle etc.) with litter; to cover with litter, as the floor of a stall.

(intransitive) To be supplied with litter as bedding; to sleep or make one's bed in litter.

A bed or stretcher so arranged that a person, esp. a sick or wounded person, may be easily carried in or upon it.

Straw, hay, etc., scattered on a floor, as bedding for animals to rest on; also, a covering of straw for plants.

Things lying scattered about in a manner indicating slovenliness; scattered rubbish.

Disorder or untidiness resulting from scattered rubbish, or from thongs lying about uncared for; as, a room in a state of litter.

The young brought forth at one time, by a cat, dog, sow or other multiparous animal, taken collectively. Also Fig.

To supply with litter, as cattle; to cover with litter, as the floor of a stall.

To put into a confused or disordered condition; to strew with scattered articles; as, to litter a room.

To give birth to; to bear; - said of brutes, esp. those which produce more than one at a birth, and also of human beings, in abhorrence or contempt.

To be supplied with litter as bedding; to sleep or make one's bed in litter.

To produce a litter.

The offspring at one birth of a multiparous mammal

Rubbish carelessly dropped or left about (especially in public places)

Conveyance consisting of a chair or bed carried on two poles by bearers

Material used to provide a bed for animals

Strew;

Make a place messy by strewing garbage around

Give birth to a litter of animals