beachcomber

[ beech-koh-mer ]
See synonyms for beachcomber on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. a person who lives by gathering salable articles of jetsam, refuse, etc., from beaches.

  2. a vagrant who lives on the seashore, especially a nonnative person living in such a way on a South Pacific island.

  1. a long wave rolling in from the ocean onto the beach.

Origin of beachcomber

1
First recorded in 1830–40; beach + comber

Words Nearby beachcomber

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use beachcomber in a sentence

  • We wanted to lease a club that he had that was closed down, called the beachcomber, in a suburb of Dallas.

    Warren Commission (5 of 26): Hearings Vol. V (of 15) | The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy
  • He began to talk of the performances of my little two-year-old, beachcomber; and after twenty minutes or so, he drifted away.

    The Deluge | David Graham Phillips

British Dictionary definitions for beachcomber

beachcomber

/ (ˈbiːtʃˌkəʊmə) /


noun
  1. a person who searches shore debris for anything of worth, esp a vagrant living on a beach

  2. Canadian (in British Columbia) a person who is paid for salvaging loose logs and returning them to logging companies

  1. a long high wave rolling onto a beach

Derived forms of beachcomber

  • beachcombing, noun

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012