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Definition
the remains of something that has been broken up or discarded- They found the locket amid the detritus of the blast
- the detritus in the back corner of my closet
- getting rid of her life's detritus
- The hide, head, and other detritus were bagged and left for the trash man.Ellen Hopkins -- Burned
- There is no guano comparable in fertility with the detritus of a capital.Victor Hugo -- Les Miserables
- He looked around the table at the detritus of Alex's awful dinner and started clearing the untouched plates.Jodi Picoult -- Nineteen Minutes
- Would be nice to so easily get rid of all of life's varied detritus.Ellen Hopkins -- Identical
- The sights were familiar, the inventory was the same, but now there was more of everything; vehicles, bomb craters, detritus.Ian McEwan -- Atonement
- Flecks of moss, dirt, and other bits of detritus floated inside the orb.Christopher Paolini -- Eldest
- "It's more like good intentions buried in the detritus of daily life.Nicholas Sparks -- The Choice
- It is buried under the sad detritus of time, where, no doubt, it belongs.Robert Penn Warren -- All the King's Men
- Her last name is listed now as Kouris, but I recognize in the old woman's face a familiar bright-eyed grin, and more than detritus of her youthful beauty.Khaled Hosseini -- And The Mountains Echoed
- The water was filthy now, streaked with oil and spotted with detritus.Dave Eggers -- Zeitoun
- The cab of this truck was comparatively clean, the only detritus a stack of papers on the passenger seat.Cassandra Clare -- City of Lost Souls
- The yard was littered with abandoned car parts, tires, broken pieces of furniture, and other detritus.Bryan Stevenson -- Just Mercy
- He stood up to poke at the papers at the back of the desk, but the medical detritus took up too much space for there to be any room for sorting.Megan Whalen Turner -- Queen of Attolia
- Detrital Wash extends for some fifty miles from Lake Mead into the mountains north of Kingman; it drains a big chunk of country.Jon Krakauer -- Into the Wild
- But there was no television, no stack of DVDs or CDs, the sort of detritus Simon associated with modern living rooms.Cassandra Clare -- City of Glass
- Perhaps food had appeared where at the last incursion there had been none; bird droppings, insects perhaps, any of the strewn detritus of landward life.William Golding -- Lord of the Flies
- I shielded my eyes from the shafts of sunlight and began picking my way over the detritus where the altar railing had once stood.Dan Simmons -- Hyperion