Jump To:

• street arab
  street arab

  noun

  a person, especially a child, who lives on the streets; urchin.
• street Arab
  street Arab

  noun

  a homeless child, esp one who survives by begging and stealing; urchin

street arab

American  

[street ar-uhb] / ˈstrit ˌær əb /

Or street Arab

noun

Archaic: Often Offensive.

1. a person, especially a child, who lives on the streets; urchin.

---

street Arab British  

noun

1. literary a homeless child, esp one who survives by begging and stealing; urchin

---

Sensitive Note

See Arab.

Etymology

Origin of street arab

First recorded in 1860–65

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

street arab street Arab

She gave him half a sovereign, and he wished he had been a street arab to whom she could have said, "And keep the change."

From The Gay Adventure A Romance by Richard Bird

Old Brown, his father, without the "e," as you have doubtless observed, started life as a bare-legged street arab in one of the big manufacturing centres—Manchester or Birmingham, I am not quite certain which.

From The Red Rat's Daughter by Guy Boothby

Neatly dressed, clean and natty, surrounded by his quondam playmates, he is “the observed of all observers,” and is gazed at with admiring respect by the street arab from a respectful distance.

From The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism. Volume 1 by Frederick Whymper

"Blest if I know," replied Tawsey, staring; "they're mad, I think," and he related the incoming of the Indian and the street arab.

From The Opal Serpent by Fergus Hume

In the tapu grove he found one fellow stealing breadfruit, cheerful and impudent as a street arab; and it was only on a menace of exposure that he showed himself the least discountenanced.

From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) by Robert Louis Stevenson

In his native town," Author U Nu wrote of himself in the third person, "the nickname of Tate Sanetha, Saturday-born street Arab, was well known to everybody .

From Time Magazine Archive

"It will at all events be good enough to get killed in," said a little street Arab who was rolling numerous flag-stones to the barricade.

From The History of a Crime The Testimony of an Eye-Witness by Victor Hugo

"He's in all right, Mr. Holmes," cried a small street Arab, running up to us.

From The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

There was something too roguish and wanton in his face, a look too like that of a schoolboy or a street Arab, to have survived much cudgeling.

From English: Composition and Literature by W. F. (William Franklin) Webster

Nellie Farren's great song was one about a street Arab with the words: "Let me hold your, nag, sir, carry your little bag, sir, anything you please to give—thank'ee, sir!"

From Adventures and Letters of Richard Harding Davis by Charles Belmont Davis