- litter
- c.1300, "a bed," also "bed-like vehicle carried on men's shoulders" (early 14c.), from Anglo-Fr. litere "portable bed," from O.Fr. litiere, from M.L. lectaria "litter" (altered in O.Fr. by influence of lit "bed"), from L. lectus "bed, couch." Meaning extended early 15c. to "straw used for bedding" (early 14c. in Anglo-Fr.) and late 15c. to "offspring of an animal at one birth" (in one bed); sense of "scattered oddments, disorderly debris" is first attested 1730, probably from M.E. verb literen "provide with bedding" (late 14c.), with notion of strewing straw. The verb meaning "to strew with objects" is from 1713. Litterbug first recorded 1947. Littering "act of dropping litter" is from 1960.