varmint

C2+ Topic:General Vocabulary

Also spelled warmint

US /ˈvɑɹmɪnt/ UK /ˈvɑːmɪnt/ See IPA manual

Freq #35348

Meanings

1

noun
a troublesome wild pest, especially around farms

The farmer kept watch for varmints near the henhouse.
2

noun
an obnoxious or troublesome person

The old man called the thief a varmint.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 noun · a troublesome wild pest,... pest nuisance predator

2 noun · an obnoxious or troublesome... troublemaker rascal nuisance

Word family

Derived forms varmintsvarminter

Related forms verminwarmint

Simplified etymology

Varmint arose in the mid-16th century as a variant of vermin. Both ultimately go back to Latin vermis, meaning “worm.”

Etymology

Dialectal form of vermin, from Latin vermis ("worm"), altered in English dialect and American usage; warmint is a pronunciation spelling associated with dialectal speech.

vermis Latin

View etymology graph ->

Topics

General Vocabulary

External links

# varmint

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** noun
**IPA (US):** /ˈvɑɹmɪnt/
**IPA (UK):** /ˈvɑːmɪnt/
**Frequency rank:** 35348

## Meanings
1. a troublesome wild pest, especially around farms
2. an obnoxious or troublesome person

## Examples
- The farmer kept watch for varmints near the henhouse.
- The old man called the thief a varmint.

## Synonyms
- pest
- nuisance
- predator
- troublemaker
- rascal

## Derived Forms
- varmints
- varminter

## Related Forms
- vermin
- warmint

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: vermis

## Etymology
Dialectal form of vermin, from Latin vermis ("worm"), altered in English dialect and American usage; warmint is a pronunciation spelling associated with dialectal speech.

## AI Etymology
Varmint is a dialectal form of vermin, ultimately from Latin vermis, worm. In English it came to mean a troublesome pest, especially one that bothers farms, and by extension an obnoxious person. Warmint is a pronunciation spelling of varmint, so it belongs as a spelling-variant form rather than a separate word. The semantic path is from harmful small creatures or pests to a colloquial insult for a troublesome person.

## Topics
- General Vocabulary

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