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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
scavenge
verb
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ For parts, he scrounged around various offices and supply rooms, scavenging what seemed useful.
▪ He made his way through a ragpickers' village built with material scavenged from other parts of the city.
▪ He was looking for his two sons, who had been out scavenging bones when the storm struck.
▪ Not even squatters camped in this place, so more likely they'd been broken by locals scavenging for carpets or pipes.
▪ Occasionally, the clouds, cleared and I was able to film mink scavenging along the rocky shoreline at low tide.
▪ That's far below our eyrie - I go down there to scavenge.
▪ Unlike most other fabled beasts it preferred to scavenge carrion from the forest floor rather than kill for fresh meat.
▪ With only the single, terrible fact of 21 December known for certain, journalists have scavenged and speculated.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Scavenge

Scavenge \Scav"enge\, v. t. To cleanse, as streets, from filth.
--C. Kingsley.

2. to salvage (usable items or material) from discarded or waste material.

3. To remove (burned gases) from the cylinder after a working stroke.

Scavenge

Scavenge \Scav"enge\, v. i. (Internal-combustion Engines) To remove the burned gases from the cylinder after a working stroke; as, this engine does not scavenge well.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
scavenge

1640s, back-formation from scavenger. Related: Scavenged; scavenging.

Wiktionary
scavenge

vb. 1 (context transitive English) to collect and remove refuse, or to search through refuse, carrion, or abandoned items for useful material 2 (context transitive English) to remove unwanted material from something, especially to purify molten metal by removing impurities 3 (context transitive English) to expel the exhaust gases from the cylinder of an internal combustion engine, and draw in air for the next cycle 4 (context intransitive English) to feed on carrion or refuse

WordNet
scavenge
  1. v. clean refuse from; "Scavenge a street"

  2. collect discarded or refused material; "She scavenged the garbage cans for food" [syn: salvage]

  3. feed on carrion or refuse; "hyenas scavenge"

  4. remove unwanted substances from [syn: clean]

Usage examples of "scavenge".

Hens and geese scavenged beneath the patched mud walls, on which apotropaic religious symbols were painted.

And Barrington Grier had treated a nineteen-year-old Joshua Calvert who had just returned from his first scavenging flight as an equal, as a professional.

First when he was a cocky teenager looking for his nightly fix of spaceflight tales, then when he was scavenging, lying about how much he made and the unbelievable find that had just slipped from his fingers, and now as one of the super-elite, a starship owner-captain, one of the youngest ever.

Predatory and scavenging dinosaurs may have found good hunting for fish or amphibians in streams and lakes, and for small prey on the shores.

This suggestion is based primarily upon the observation that the largest birds today are scavenging vultures and condors.

It had been two months since the Commissioner had declared a moratorium on scavenging and had pulled all ships out of space, but this feeling of a stretched-out vista had not stopped thrilling Long.

Even the thought that the moratorium was called pending a decision on the part of Earth to enforce its new insistence on water economy, by deciding upon a ration limit for scavenging, did not cast him entirely down.

I spent the time scavenging paper and ink as unobtrusively as I might, working on various missives by the light of our campfires at night, and during the day, riding among the women of the zenana and conversing with the Ephesians.

After three days of scavenging for scraps and sleeping wedged in a dark corner of the hold, he was grateful for it.

When humanity had been forced from the sprawling Arcologies, it had tried shrewdly to market its scavenging skills among the mech cities.

No one had ever seen anything like a Mantis scavenging or navvy-policing or hunting the assets of other mech cities.

He had not felt so daunted and humble since the days when he first went out with his father on simple scavenging raids.

They specialized in it, the way Bishops knew scavenging better than anybody, and Pawns could grow food better.

Lori had also gone scavenging and come across a box that had once held some chocolate-covered peppermint candy.

He was referring, not to the boys scavenging coal, but to classes of people doing business on the northern shore of Billingsgate Dock.