Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Various small animals or insects, such as rats or cockroaches, that are destructive, annoying, or injurious to health.
- n. Animals that prey on game, such as foxes or weasels.
- n. A person considered loathsome or highly offensive.
- n. Such people considered as a group.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Any noxious or troublesome animal: mostly used in a collective sense.
- n. A worm; a reptile.
- n. A noxious or disgusting insect, especially a parasite; particularly, a louse, a bedbug, or a flea, A mammal or bird injurious to game, aud mischievous or troublesome in game-preserves: chiefly an English usage. Such quadrupeds as badgers, otters, weasels, polecats, rats, and mice, and such birds as hawks and owls, are all called vermin.
- n. Hence A contemptible or obnoxious person; a low or vile fellow; also, such persons collectively.
- To rid or clear of vermin.
Wiktionary
- n. countable or uncountable Animals that prey on game, such as foxes or weasels.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. obsolete An animal, in general.
- n. A noxious or mischievous animal; especially, noxious little animals or insects, collectively, as squirrels, rats, mice, worms, flies, lice, bugs, etc.
- n. Hence, in contempt, noxious human beings.
WordNet 3.0
- n. any of various small animals or insects that are pests; e.g. cockroaches or rats
- n. an irritating or obnoxious person
Etymologies
- From Norman vermin and Old French vermin, from Vulgar Latin *verminum (“vermin”), collective noun formed from Latin vermis ("worm"). See also worm. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old French, from Vulgar Latin *vermīnum, from Latin vermis, worm; see wer-2 in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I prefer the term vermin, but am happy that dictionary.com hooked me up the correct spelling for the former as I had totally blown it on my guesstimate.”
“Another American squatter was always sending over to borrow a small-tooth comb, which she called a vermin destroyer; and once the same person asked the loan of a towel, as a friend had come from the”
“All the quadrupeds which he met there were foxes, fuppofed by him to have been brought upon the ice; but of ufelefs animals, fuch as fea lions and penguins, which he calls vermin, the number was incredible.”
“Anyone who says resistance – even armed resistance – to such treasonous vermin is unpatriotic has things entirely backwards.”
Coyote Blog » Blog Archive » Wherein It Turns Out I Am Not Loyal to the US
“At first I was vilely treated, beaten by the women and children, clothed in vermin-infested mangy furs, and fed on refuse.”
“Then you vulgarly say to "exterminate the vermin from the party".”
Clinton adviser: Clinton 'willing' to lend campaign more money
“Do you know what this cowardly, secreting throwing vermin is (I'm not sure it's a vermin, don't let me throw you off).”
“Why should any resident have to suffer a likely increase in vermin simply because their neighbour doesn't like the look of a wheelie bin?”
“The happy Viking pagan custom of bad winter weather, foreign war, and obnoxious garbage eating vermin, is upon us.”
“What must be done to insure the safety of good people who are assaulted by roving bands of these vermin is not a subject fit for mixed company but rest assured something is being done.”
Think Progress » How to Avoid Being Shot by Right-Wing Pundits
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘vermin’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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dickinsonian
psalteries, enamoring, estates, whim, calyx, hoisted, nought, pentateuchal, retina, obviated, revelation, stalactite and 193 more...
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ulyssean
... as in "by James Joyce"
stately, plump, aloft, gurgling, untonsured, chrysostomos, jowl, parapet, jesuit, indigestion, scutter, noserag and 688 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
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Joshee Word List
gash, engross, entail, stoke, ode, vacillate, aspersion, asperity, clan, kith, prospect, nag and 229 more...
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A spoonful of sugar
Words I should learn/I want to learn/I just learned, with a quotation to help the medicine go down.
approbation, assuage, chicanery, abscond, effrontery, enervation, equivocate, ennui, aftertaste, filibuster, perfunctory, abide and 391 more...
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stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
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vocabs
to learn
fond, fuss, unhinged, syndication, mayhem, invoke, nostalgia, bizarre, blatantly, condemn, comrade, captivity and 89 more...
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Words that are fun to say
stipple, carbuncle, dongle, exemplar, misbegotten, gigolo, salubrious, jupiter, propinquity, piglet, tobogganing, supercilious and 309 more...
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Turning and Twisting Tours
words in the nature of double spirals
swift, swerve, swirl, swivel, swarm, swag, swank, swoop, swinge, swarf, spire, esparto and 361 more...
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useful vocab
pysmatic, relentless, storge, preamble, oscillate, itinerary, frolic, frolicsome, abdicate, frolicking, divergent, abnegate and 312 more...
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Watchmen (2009)
Words from 2009 'Watchmen' film.
adversary, certitude, deterrent, stockpile, posturing, minuteman, vigilante, toss, flip, spook, carcass, tread and 174 more...
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V is for Velvet Elvis
My V Words
vagabond, vamoose, vapors, varmint, vaudeville, velvet elvis, vermin, vigilante, vixen, valentimes, von, vamp and 1 more...
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Ugly Words--short U
Short U is ugliest before multiple consonants.
turgid, mulch, lurch, pulpy, vermin, hurl, month, murderer, culture, cult, earworm, worm and 19 more...
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V
V's speech made of V words from V for Vendetta
voila, view, vaudevillian, veteran, vicariously, victim, villain, vicissitudes, visage, veneer, vanity, vestige and 37 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for vermin.
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