1
a
: broken fragments (as of rock) resulting from the decay or destruction of a building
fortifications knocked into rubble—
C. S. Forester
C. S. Forester
b
: a miscellaneous confused mass or group of usually broken or worthless things
2
: waterworn or rough broken stones or bricks used in coarse masonry or in filling courses of walls
3
: rough stone as it comes from the quarry
Synonyms
Examples of rubble in a Sentence
Noun
Rescue workers managed to pull two injured people out of the rubble.
The earthquake reduced the whole town to rubble.
Recent Examples on the WebJeffrey Kluger, TIME, 18 Sep. 2024
Their wedding photographs and his football trophies were lost in the rubble.
—Leonardo Bevilacqua, The Christian Science Monitor, 18 Sep. 2024
Robert Channick, Chicago Tribune, 12 July 2024
But in 1992, Hindu nationalist politicians organized a mob to storm the mosque and hack it to rubble, claiming that it had been built on the site of Rama’s birthplace.
—Supriya Gandhi, Foreign Affairs, 13 July 2020
See all Example Sentences for rubble 
Noun
But the ring could not last: both the pull of gravity and the drag of Earth’s exosphere, which extends more than 6,000 miles into space, would eventually pull the rubble down to the surface, eliminating the ring.
—Jeffrey Kluger, TIME, 18 Sep. 2024
Their wedding photographs and his football trophies were lost in the rubble.
—Leonardo Bevilacqua, The Christian Science Monitor, 18 Sep. 2024
Verb
Bally’s took possession of the site last week, with trucks, trailers and the Brandenburg Industrial Service demolition company setting up shop to begin the process of reducing what was once the largest newspaper printing plant in North America to rubble.
—Robert Channick, Chicago Tribune, 12 July 2024
But in 1992, Hindu nationalist politicians organized a mob to storm the mosque and hack it to rubble, claiming that it had been built on the site of Rama’s birthplace.
—Supriya Gandhi, Foreign Affairs, 13 July 2020
See all Example Sentences for rubble
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'rubble.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near rubble
Cite this Entry
“Rubble.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rubble. Accessed 29 Sep. 2024.
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