• scavenger •
Pronunciation: skæ-vin-jêr • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: 1. (British) A street cleaner. 2. A junk collector. 3. An animal or any other organism that feeds on dead, decaying matter.
Notes: Here is a word that seems to have come from a verb (to) scavenge but may itself be used as a verb. Both forms have been legally adopted by English, so the present participles serve as adjectives and nouns. Scavengery is a British term for the activity of street-cleaning.
In Play: Animals can be scavengers: "Scavengers keep our roads clear of roadkill." This word is susceptible to figurativity: "Phil Adelphia is a scavenger poet who scavenges other's poems for ideas, words, and phrases for his own work." A scavenger hunt is a game in which participants look for hidden items by a list of clues as to their whereabouts.
Word History: Today's Good Word is a nasalized modification of Middle English scavager "tax collector on foreign goods", based on scavage "tax on foreign goods", This word was borrowed from Old North French escauwage "inspection", borrowed from a Germanic language like Old High German scouwon "to look at" or Old English sceawian "to examine, inspect". Both these words derive from PIE (s)keu-/(s)kou- "to notice, observe, feel", source also of Sanskrit kavii "poet, seer, sage", Greek koeein "to sense, feel" and kudos "renown, glory", Latin cavere "to be careful, wary" and cautio(n) "wariness", Persian kay "poet-king", German schauen "to look at", Dutch schouwen "to view, inspect", Danish skue "to behold", Russian and Serbian čudo "miracle", Polish čud "miracle", Serbian čuti "to feel, hear", and Czech koumat "to speculate, ponder". (Now a kudos to Jeremy Busch, Agora manager and GW editor, for spotting today's fascinating Good Word and sharing it.)
