Etymology of ゴミ


I'm curious why is ゴミ commonly spelled in Katakana. What word is it derived
from, if any?




Let me attempt to give an English explanation of @macraf 's description for
you.

This word _gomi_ was used mainly by farmers and meant 木の葉 ("[fallen] tree
leaves"), and _gomi_ is still used in various dialects to refer to [fallen]
tree leaves.

In Nagano Prefecture in Japan, people in some places use the word _gomi_ to
refer to tree leaves, and for fallen pine needles, they use the term _matsu
gomi_.

In the Aichi prefecture dialect, fallen pine needles are just called ゴ. In
Kyoto, there is also the expression 「ゴを掻く」 [literally "to scratch leaves",
idiomatically meaning "to rake leaves"].

Later on, ゴミ was used to refer to things that were considered worthless,
取るに足らないもの or 役に立たないもの, in other words, things that were useless.

(I would appreciate any comments or fixes to this attempt at translation.)

