scavenger
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
1Words Nearby scavenger
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use scavenger in a sentence
In Virginia Beach, one arts-and-culture hub put on a scavenger hunt to draw people to the shopping corridor.
Small Business Saturday spotlights pandemic-inspired entrepreneurship | Emily Davies | November 28, 2020 | Washington PostThe series turns New York City into a holiday scavenger hunt.
One Good Thing: Netflix’s Dash & Lily is a sweet TV rom-com with a Christmas twist | Emily VanDerWerff | November 20, 2020 | VoxBecause the scavengers kept on getting arrested, they became known as jail boys.
This year, she is turning her party virtual with Zoom bingo, magicians in breakout rooms, scavenger hunts and craft projects that she has mailed out to neighborhood kids in advance.
Parents are going the extra mile to save Halloween for their kids | Emily Davies | October 29, 2020 | Washington PostAshley Nguyen, who lives in Arlington with her 6- and 9-year-old daughters, is organizing a small scavenger hunt with a handful of neighborhood families.
Parents are going the extra mile to save Halloween for their kids | Emily Davies | October 29, 2020 | Washington Post
The eggs are disbursed throughout the five boroughs and a citywide scavenger hunt ensues.
Franck de las Mercedes Lost Everything in a Fire…Except His Faberge Egg | Justin Jones | April 8, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTFor Fashion Week, Band of Outsiders traded the runway for the road with a social-media scavenger hunt around NYC.
Band of Outsiders Stages Scavenger Hunt for Fall 2013 Collection | Misty White Sidell | February 8, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTLife is a scavenger hunt run backward as well as forward, a race to comprehend.
At that point, Tyson had become a scavenger spewing bile and pus.
They also brought in a few of the rabbit-sized scavenger animals.
Space Prison | Tom GodwinHe carries a scavenger's bag and a common sailor's cap, and screams until the whole world gathers around him.
The Memoirs of Count Carlo Gozzi; Volume the first | Count Carlo GozziNo scavenger shark, no carrion crab, ever chambered more grisly secrets in his digestive processes than this big charnel bird.
The Escape of Mr. Trimm | Irvin S. CobbThe scavenger and the ragpicker, being the lowest grade of blousards, do not always rise to the dignity even of a blouse.
This is always the great difficulty skywardness has in dealing with the moral scavenger.
Somehow Good | William de Morgan
British Dictionary definitions for scavenger
/ (ˈskævɪndʒə) /
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
Origin of scavenger
1Derived forms of scavenger
- scavengery, 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
Scientific definitions for 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.
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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