garbage collection

garbage collection (usually uncountable, plural garbage collections)

1. (Canada, US) A service, generally run by local government, for transporting household garbage to the appropriate facility.

   Synonym: rubbish collection

2. (programming) An automatic mechanism that frees up resources (such as allocated memory) that are no longer in use.

   Synonym: GC

   • [2002, Patrick Niemeyer, Jonathan Knudsen, Learning Java, O'Reilly, →ISBN, page 135:

     Java uses a technique known as garbage collection to remove objects that are no longer needed. The garbage collector is Java's grim reaper.]

   • 2016, Richard Jones, Antony Hosking, Eliot Moss, The Garbage Collection Handbook‎, CRC Press, →ISBN:

     Generational garbage collection has proved to be a highly effective organisation, offering significant performance improvements for a wide range of applications.

• GC

• garbage collect
• garbage collector