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• 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.

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street Arab British  

noun

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

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Sensitive Note

See Arab.

Etymology

Origin of street arab

First recorded in 1860–65

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

street arab street Arab

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 Boothby, Guy

They were popular, with a vengeance—for every little street arab had beef bones for castanets, and every new song was roared out in the streets until it nauseated. 

From Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign by Ashton, John

His figure interested her—the figure of a boy, almost a street arab.

From Women in Love by Lawrence, D. H. (David Herbert)

He learned his letters with all the sharp precocity which marks the Parisian street arab, and derived great amusement from the woodcuts illustrating the alphabet.

From The Fat and the Thin by Vizetelly, Ernest Alfred

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 Bird, Richard

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

We had fallen in somewhere with a poor little waif of a boy, one easily to be recognized by the practiced eye of to-day as a good specimen of the street Arab.

From Authors and Friends by Fields, Annie

"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 Hugo, Victor

Butler, having transferred his faith to the Bank of England, diverted himself like a street Arab with a slingshot by peppering the church windows.

From Modern Essays by Ayres, Harry Morgan

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

From The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir