beachcomber
Americannoun
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a person who lives by gathering saleable articles of jetsam, refuse, etc., from beaches.
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a vagrant who lives on the seashore, especially a nonnative person living in such a way on a South Pacific island.
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a long wave rolling in from the ocean onto the beach.
noun
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a person who searches shore debris for anything of worth, esp a vagrant living on a beach
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(in British Columbia) a person who is paid for salvaging loose logs and returning them to logging companies
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a long high wave rolling onto a beach
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of beachcomber
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“The upshot of this line of precedent is that government-authorized invasions of property — whether by plane, boat, cable, or beachcomber — are physical takings requiring just compensation,” he wrote.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 23, 2021
Soon, moving along the rows of the periodic table like a beachcomber on a shore, Cade began to experiment with salts of rubidium, cerium and strontium.
From Nature ● Aug. 25, 2019
Twenty minutes away lives another "beachcomber" with a rather different lifestyle.
From BBC ● Sep. 26, 2013
Question 7 The gigantic blue eyeball found by a Florida beachcomber last week was determined on Monday to have likely come from what?
From Slate ● Oct. 19, 2012
He reminded me of a beachcomber from Key West.
From "The Lightning Thief" by Rick Riordan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
