Etymology

A word of obscure origin.  As OED notes, the closest comparandum to English trash appears to be Norw dial trask 'lumber, trumpery, trash, baggage', and thus an unattested ON etymon is sometimes assumed (so MED, Falk-Torp); cp. further OIcel tros 'droppings, rubbish', OFris tros 'tree stump' < PGmc *trusan (and the Ablaut variant represented by OE trūs 'brushwood', cp. Norw trūs 'waste'), which Orel derives from *trewan (cp. Go triu 'strick, tree trunk', OIcel tré 'tree, wood', OE trēow, OFris trē, OS trio 'tree, beam').

PGmc Ancestor

*trus-

Proposed ON Etymon (OIcel representative)

cp. tros 'droppings, rubbish'
(ONP tros (sb.))

Other Scandinavian Reflexes

Norw dial trask; cp. Icel tros, Norw tros, ODan tros, Dan dial tros, Sw tross, Sw dial tråss

OE Cognate

cp. trūs 'brushwood'

Phonological and morphological markers

Summary category

DD1

Attestation

Attested by MED from a handful of scattered texts, none of which exactly parallels the sense here (the closest is 'rag, tattered garment' from a1450 Yk.Pl. (Add 35290)), as well as personal names and Sur. place-names. OED gives subsequent instances of its (1b) 'an old worn out shoe' from the 18c. and 19c. and notes the instance in Cl with scepticism because it is so early (but misses out MED's other citations). MED also offers an earlier citation of its sense (1) 'brush, fallen leaves, or twigs used as kindling, tinder', which OED (sense 1a) only cites from the 16c. onwards, from a1400 (Add 35157:Pearsall).

Occurrences in the Gersum Corpus

Cl 40

The pl. n. trascheʒ in Cl makes up part of a description of tattered clothing: 'rent cokreʒ at þe kne, and his clutte trascheʒ, and his tabarde totorne, and his toteʒ oute' (40-1). Anderson (followed by Olsen) glosses 'old shoes' given the later parallels cited by OED and the attestation of this sense in N dial of MnE,  a possibility repeated by Menner who like most editors glosses more conservatively '?rags'. The emendation to a v. trasche[d] and n. clutte[ʒ] in GollCl seems unnecessary, given that the ME v. clouten is well attested (and the v. trash isn't recorded until MnE).

Bibliography

MED trash (n.) , OED trash (n.1) , HTOED , de Vries tros, Mag. tros (1), Orel *trusan, AEW trūs, EPNE trasche