Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun plural Various small animals, such as rats or cockroaches, that are destructive, annoying, or injurious to health.
  • noun plural Animals that prey on farm animals or game or that destroy crops.
  • noun plural People considered loathsome or repulsive.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Any noxious or troublesome animal: mostly used in a collective sense.
  • noun A worm; a reptile.
  • noun 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.
  • noun Hence A contemptible or obnoxious person; a low or vile fellow; also, such persons collectively.
  • To rid or clear of vermin.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete An animal, in general.
  • noun A noxious or mischievous animal; especially, noxious little animals or insects, collectively, as squirrels, rats, mice, worms, flies, lice, bugs, etc.
  • noun Hence, in contempt, noxious human beings.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun countable or uncountable Animals that prey on game, such as foxes or weasels.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun any of various small animals or insects that are pests; e.g. cockroaches or rats
  • noun an irritating or obnoxious person

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French, from Vulgar Latin *vermīnum, from Latin vermis, worm; see wer- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Norman vermin and Old French vermin, from Vulgar Latin *verminum (“vermin”), collective noun formed from Latin vermis ("worm"). See also worm.

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