Rubble

Rubble

Noun · /ˈrʌb(ə)l/ · broken fragments of stone, brick, or concrete from demolished or destroyed structures

Definition

Rubble is the broken, irregular fragments of stone, brick, concrete, or masonry that remain after a building or structure has been demolished, destroyed, or collapsed. It is an uncountable mass noun — you do not say a rubble or two rubbles; you say a pile of rubble, tonnes of rubble, buried under rubble. Rubble can also describe rough broken stone used deliberately in construction — rubble masonry uses irregularly shaped stones without precise dressing. In figurative use, rubble describes anything reduced to a broken, disordered state: the proposal was left in rubble.

Origin

From Middle English robyl or rubel, appearing in the fifteenth century, probably derived from the Old French robe meaning plunder or spoils — debris being what is left after a building has been stripped or destroyed. The word is closely related to rubbish, which shares the same root. By the sixteenth century, rubble had settled into its modern meaning of broken masonry and rough stonework, and it has retained that precise meaning ever since.