mudlark
English
Etymology
From mud + lark.
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /ˈmʌdlɑːk/
Audio (AU) (file)
Noun
mudlark (plural mudlarks)
- (slang) A pig; pork.
- (rare) One who scavenges in river or harbor mud for items of value, especially in London during the Industrial Revolution. One who cleans sewers or scavenges in them. A person who begs near a river.
- 1799, George Mogridge, Old Humphrey's walks in London and its neighbourhood, Religious Tract Society, page 286:
- Besides these, there were the mudlark and the scupple hunter: the former prowling about at low water, receiving in his small bag such petty packages as he could get from his dishonest friends on board; and the later sneaking about the wharves and quays, under the pretense of wanting work, to pick up everything and anything that came to hand.
- 1995, Isabel Fonseca, Bury Me Standing, Vintage 2007, p. 104:
- the children were nothing like inert: a large population of junior mudlarks, so long unwashed that you could hardly make them out, climbed among the ruins, cheerfully playing the games that all children play – pushing wheels with sticks, flipping rusty lids and bottle caps in makeshift tiddlywinks.
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- A child that spends most of its time in the streets, especially in slum areas. A child who plays in the mud. Any dirty or unkempt person.
- (slang) A soldier of the Royal Engineers.
- Any of various birds that are found in muddy places or build their nests with mud, especially Anthus petrosus and Alauda arvensis.
- (Australia) The Grallina cyanoleuca that builds its nest with mud into a bowl-like shape.
- A racehorse that performs well on muddy or wet tracks.
- Synonym: mudder
Verb
mudlark (third-person singular simple present mudlarks, present participle mudlarking, simple past and past participle mudlarked)
- (intransitive) To scavenge in river or harbor mud for items of value.