Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context US Canada English) A worker who removes refuse. 2 (context programming English) An algorithm, procedure or thread dedicated to garbage collection: reclaiming resources which are no longer in use.
WordNet
n. someone employed to collect and dispose of refuse [syn: garbage man, refuse collector, dustman]
Usage examples of "garbage collector".
It was overripe and she was going to throw it in her garbage collector.
I'd smile calmly and announce it to the kid at the gas pump, or the garbage collector, or a lady with a shopping bag at a street light.
And a garbage collector, though rating low on special training, will do well on scales two and three.
One morning, we woke to find the house next door reduced to nothing but a heap of sticks and a pile of newspaper neatly tied with string, left out for the garbage collector.
Quigley was a garbage collector, however well dressed, he was perhaps accustomed, like postmen, to barking dogs and hostile children.
No one really sets out in life with the ambition to be a garbage collector, though this is an important and essential function of civilization.
Everyone in that jail, from the warden to the garbage collector, know Sanders's face by heart.