Swarf vs Debris - What's the difference?
swarf | debris |
the waste chips or shavings from metalworking or a saw cutting wood
* 1979 , Cormac McCarthy, Suttree , Random House, p.95:
the grit worn away by use of a grindstone or whetstone, being particles of the material being cut and of the cutting stone itself
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
, 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= The ruins of a broken-down structure
(geology) Large rock fragments left by a melting glacier etc.
As nouns the difference between swarf and debris
is that swarf is the waste chips or shavings from metalworking or a saw cutting wood while debris is rubble, wreckage, scattered remains of something destroyed.As a verb swarf
is to grow languid; to faint.swarf
English
Noun
(-)- Harrogate looked at the ground. A black swarf packed with small parts in a greasy mosaic.
Usage notes
Infrequently used after the 19th century; primarily in technical settings.See also
* grind * grinder * grindstone * grit * hone * metalwork * smith * whet * whetstoneReferences
debris
English
Alternative forms
*Noun
(-)citation
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, […].}}
