单词 | bone-grubber |
释义 | > as lemmasbone-grubber bone-grubber n. now rare (chiefly historical) a person who scavenges for bones in order to sell them to be reused for making glue, fertilizer, etc.; also figurative and in extended use (chiefly depreciative); cf. bone-picker n. 3. ΘΚΠ the mind > possession > poverty > [noun] > poor person > very poor person armeOE goodlessa1350 pauper1516 bankrupt?1563 gnaw-bone1607 gnaw-crust1611 have-nothing1755 bone-grubber1817 bone-picker1825 lack-all1850 destitute1863 stiff1899 down and out1901 down-and-outer1906 1817 Morning Post 18 Sept. She does not outrage humanity so far as to term them [sc. the royal family of France] ‘bone-grubbers’. 1842 Bentley's Misc. 11 576 More than half our modern scribes..are little better than literary bone-grubbers, pickers and stealers of unconsidered trifles. 1911 F. W. Hackwood Good Old Times xx. 249 Mary Wilkinson, a beggar and bone-grubber, in whose ragged clothing no less than £300 was found to be concealed. 2003 D. Cadbury Seven Wonders Industr. World (2004) iv. 159 The city's poorest, less fortunate than the paid nightsoil men, struggled to get by as street sweepers, bone-grubbers or ‘finders’ of one kind or another. < as lemmas |
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