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Debris vs Detritus - What's the difference?

debris | detritus |

As nouns the difference between debris and detritus

is that debris is rubble, wreckage, scattered remains of something destroyed while detritus is pieces of rock broken off by ice, glacier, or erosion.

debris

English

Alternative forms

*

Noun

(-)
  • Rubble, wreckage, scattered remains of something destroyed.
  • * {{quote-news, year=2012, date=December 21, author=David M. Halbfinger, Charles V. Bagli and Sarah Maslin Nir, title=On Ravaged Coastline, It’s Rebuild Deliberately vs. Rebuild Now, work=New York Times citation
  • , passage=His neighbors were still ripping out debris . But Mr. Ryan, a retired bricklayer who built his house by hand 30 years ago only to lose most of it to Hurricane Sandy, was already hard at work rebuilding. }}
  • Litter and discarded refuse.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Welcome to the plastisphere , passage=[The researchers] noticed many of their pieces of [plastic marine] debris sported surface pits around two microns across. Such pits are about the size of a bacterial cell. Closer examination showed that some of these pits did, indeed, contain bacteria, […].}}
  • The ruins of a broken-down structure
  • (geology) Large rock fragments left by a melting glacier etc.
  • Anagrams

    *

    detritus

    English

    Noun

    (wikipedia detritus)
  • (countable, chiefly, geological) pieces of rock broken off by ice, glacier, or erosion.
  • (biology) Organic waste material from decomposing dead plants or animals.
  • debris or fragments of disintegrated material
  • 2001'. "But of course: no clutter. No newspapers, no renegade scraps of domestic '''detritus , no rubber bands, paper clips, coupons, pens or pencils, notebooks, magazines. No knives. Where were the knives?" — Chip Kidd. ''The Cheese Monkeys

    Derived terms

    * detrital * detritivore