scavenger

[skav-in-jer]

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR scavenger ON THESAURUS.COM

noun

an animal or other organism that feeds on dead organic matter.

a person who searches through and collects items from discarded material.

a street cleaner.

Chemistry. a chemical that consumes or renders inactive the impurities in a mixture.

Origin of scavenger

1520–30; earlier scavager < Anglo-French scawageour, equivalent to (e)scawage inspection (escaw(er) to inspect < Middle Dutch schauwen to look at (cognate with show) + -age -age) + -eour -or²

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for scavenger

hunter, scrounger, rat, hyena, vulture, magpie, scrounge

Examples from the Web for scavenger

Contemporary Examples of scavenger

Life is a scavenger hunt run backward as well as forward, a race to comprehend.
The Last of the Wasps
Tad Friend
September 27, 2009
At that point, Tyson had become a scavenger spewing bile and pus.
Bloody Brilliant
Stanley Crouch
April 24, 2009

Historical Examples of scavenger

There was a juiciness about the deed that might have sickened a scavenger.
Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit
Charles Dickens
Why, they might just as well be thrown into the gutter and carried off in the scavenger's cart.
The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete
Emile Zola
He is a scavenger, and often gives me fine large sheets of paper.
The Dragon Painter
Mary McNeil Fenollosa
Not so: if we had only the rain as a scavenger we should be in a sorry plight.
The History of London
Walter Besant
Summon some scavenger to collect the vile remains, and bury them in a dung-hill.
City Crimes
Greenhorn

British Dictionary definitions for scavenger

scavenger

noun

a person who collects things discarded by others

any animal that feeds on decaying organic matter, esp on refuse

a substance added to a chemical reaction or mixture to counteract the effect of impurities

a person employed to clean the streets

Derived Formsscavengery, noun

Word Origin for scavenger

C16: from Anglo-Norman scawager, from Old Norman French escauwage examination, from escauwer to scrutinize, of Germanic origin; related to Flemish scauwen

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

Word Origin and History for scavenger

1540s, originally "person hired to remove refuse from streets," from Middle English scawageour (late 14c.), London official in charge of collecting tax on goods sold by foreign merchants, from Anglo-French scawager, from scawage "toll or duty on goods offered for sale in one's precinct" (c.1400), from Old North French escauwage "inspection," from a Germanic source (cf. Old High German scouwon, Old English sceawian "to look at, inspect;" see show (v.)).

It has come to be regarded as an agent noun in -er, but the verb is a late back-formation from the noun. With intrusive -n- (c.1500) as in harbinger, passenger, messenger. Extended to animals 1590s. Scavenger hunt is attested from 1937.

scavenger in Science

scavenger

[skăv′ən-jər]

An animal that feeds on dead organisms, especially a carnivorous animal that eats dead animals rather than or in addition to hunting live prey. Vultures, hyenas, and wolves are scavengers.