verb ·2 syllables ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Verb

1. 1
   To collect and remove refuse, or to search through refuse, carrion, or abandoned items for useful material. transitive

   "We scavenged a couple of old beer cans for our art project."

2. 2
   remove unwanted substances from wordnet
3. 3
   To remove unwanted material from something, especially to purify molten metal by removing impurities. transitive
4. 4
   feed on carrion or refuse wordnet
5. 5
   To expel the exhaust gases from the cylinder of an internal combustion engine, and draw in air for the next cycle. transitive

Show 3 more definitions

6. 6
   collect discarded material wordnet
7. 7
   To feed on carrion or refuse. intransitive
8. 8
   clean refuse from wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

bleachbowdlerizecleancleanclean outclean up

Example

More examples

"After the war ended, Tina had to scavenge for scraps just to have enough to eat."

Etymology

Back-formation from scavenger.

Related phrases

scavenge pumpinternal combustion

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.