Question

scavenger noun You might guess that scavenger is a derivative of scavenge, but the reverse is actually true; scavenger is the older word, first appearing in English in the early 16th century, and the back-formation scavenge came into English in the mid-17th century. Scavenger is an alteration of the earlier scavager, itself from Anglo-French scawageour, meaning "collector of scavage." In medieval times, scavage was a tax levied by towns and cities on goods put up for sale by nonresidents in order to provide resident merchants with a competitive advantage. The officers in charge of collecting this tax were later made responsible for keeping streets clean, and that's how scavenger came to refer to a public sanitation employee in Great Britain before acquiring its current sense referring to a person who salvages discarded items. 1 chiefly British : a person employed to remove dirt and refuse from streets2 : one that scavenges: such asa : a garbage collectorb : a junk collectorc : a chemically active substance acting to make innocuous or remove an undesirable substance3 : an organism that typically feeds on refuse or carrion

Accepted Answer

May 23, 2019 SKAV-un-jer My uncle, a habitual scavenger and clever handyman, found a broken exercise machine left on the curb and fixed it so that it works again."The 34-year-old scavenger has had to work longer and harder over the past year, underlining how a drastic decline in scrap metal and commodity prices has hurt even the poor who collect discarded metal to sell to scrap yards." — Brendan O'Brien, Reuters, 4 July 2016

Word	scavenger
Date	May 23, 2019
Type	noun
Syllables	SKAV-un-jer
Etymology	You might guess that scavenger is a derivative of scavenge, but the reverse is actually true; scavenger is the older word, first appearing in English in the early 16th century, and the back-formation scavenge came into English in the mid-17th century. Scavenger is an alteration of the earlier scavager, itself from Anglo-French scawageour, meaning "collector of scavage." In medieval times, scavage was a tax levied by towns and cities on goods put up for sale by nonresidents in order to provide resident merchants with a competitive advantage. The officers in charge of collecting this tax were later made responsible for keeping streets clean, and that's how scavenger came to refer to a public sanitation employee in Great Britain before acquiring its current sense referring to a person who salvages discarded items.
Examples	My uncle, a habitual scavenger and clever handyman, found a broken exercise machine left on the curb and fixed it so that it works again. "The 34-year-old scavenger has had to work longer and harder over the past year, underlining how a drastic decline in scrap metal and commodity prices has hurt even the poor who collect discarded metal to sell to scrap yards." — Brendan O'Brien, Reuters, 4 July 2016
Definition	1 chiefly British : a person employed to remove dirt and refuse from streets 2 : one that scavenges: such as a : a garbage collector b : a junk collector c : a chemically active substance acting to make innocuous or remove an undesirable substance 3 : an organism that typically feeds on refuse or carrion

Scavenger English Tax Streets Person Discarded Scrap Metal