VERMIN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does vermin mean? 

• VERMIN (noun)
  The noun VERMIN has 2 senses:

1. an irritating or obnoxious person

2. any of various small animals or insects that are pests; e.g. cockroaches or rats

  Familiarity information: VERMIN used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• VERMIN (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An irritating or obnoxious person

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

varmint; vermin

Hypernyms ("vermin" is a kind of...):

bad person (a person who does harm to others)

Derivation:

verminous (of the nature of vermin; very offensive or repulsive)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Any of various small animals or insects that are pests; e.g. cockroaches or rats

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Context example:

boys in the village have probably been shooting vermin

Hypernyms ("vermin" is a kind of...):

pest (any unwanted and destructive insect or other animal that attacks food or crops or livestock etc.)

Derivation:

verminous (of the nature of vermin; very offensive or repulsive)

 Context examples 

Did I not very particularly ask you whether there were any vermin in it?

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The other affected him as so much vermin, and always aroused in him an impulse to crush him under his foot.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

It has been touch and go for our lives, said Lord John, gravely, and I could not think of a more rotten sort of death than to be outed by such filthy vermin.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He watched them for a while quietly, but at last when they were going too far, he seized his cutting-knife, and cried: “Away with you, vermin,” and began to cut them down.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

I could see distinctly the limbs of these vermin with my naked eye, much better than those of a European louse through a microscope, and their snouts with which they rooted like swine.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

By the rood! if I had my will upon ye, I should nail you upon the abbey doors, as they hang vermin before their holes.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

"Filthy vermin!" I cried.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But by what I have gathered from your own relation, and the answers I have with much pains wrung and extorted from you, I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Creeping vermin, I know you!

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I forgot another circumstance (and perhaps I might have the reader’s pardon if it were wholly omitted), that while I held the odious vermin in my hands, it voided its filthy excrements of a yellow liquid substance all over my clothes; but by good fortune there was a small brook hard by, where I washed myself as clean as I could; although I durst not come into my master’s presence until I were sufficiently aired.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)