/ ˈskævɪndʒə(r); NAmE / noun
an animal, a bird or a person that scavenges
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WORD ORIGIN
mid 16th cent.: alteration of earlier scavager , from Anglo-Norman French scawager , from Old Northern French escauwer inspect, from Flemish scauwen to show. The term originally denoted an officer who collected scavage , a toll on foreign merchants' goods offered for sale in a town, later a person who kept the streets clean.