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guttersnipe

/ˌgʌdərˈsnaɪp/
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Other forms: guttersnipes

If someone refers to you as a guttersnipe, it's definitely not a compliment — they're essentially calling you a messy and ill-behaved child.

While it's unusual to hear guttersnipe these days, it was once a common way to refer to a homeless person, particularly a child. The word made an initial appearance in the 1850s meaning "street corner broker" in Wall Street slang, but thanks to Mark Twain's 1869 reference to "noble savages (and) illustrious guttersnipes," it came to mean "street urchin." Earlier, as far back as Shakespeare's time snipe had been used to mean "disreputable person."

Definitions of guttersnipe
  1. noun
    a child who spends most of his time in the streets, especially in slum areas
    synonyms: street urchin
    see moresee less
    types:
    gamine
    (sometimes offensive) a girl who has been abandoned and roams the streets
    gamin, street arab, throwaway
    (sometimes offensive) a boy who has been abandoned and roams the streets
    type of:
    urchin
    a poor and often mischievous city child
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