scavenger
Meanings
noun
- Someone who scavenges, especially one who searches through rubbish for food or useful things.
- An animal that feeds on decaying matter such as carrion.
- A street sweeper.
- A child employed to pick up loose cotton from the floor in a cotton mill.
- A substance used to remove impurities from the air or from a solution.
verb
- To scavenge.
- To clean the rubbish from a street, etc.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
Originally from Middle English scavager, from Anglo-Norman scawageour (“one who had to do with scavage, inspector, tax collector”), from Old Northern French *scawage, escauwage (“scavage”), Old French *scavage, escavage, alteration of escauvinghe (compare Medieval Latin scewinga, sceawinga), from Old Dutch scauwōn (“to inspect, to examinate, to look at”). Usually reinterpreted/re-analysed today as scavenge (which was originally a backformation from this word) + -er. Compare Old English sċēawung (“a showing, spectacle, examination, inspection, toll on exposure of goods”) and Dutch schouwing (“inspection”). More at show.
Derived words
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.