subs. (common).—Anything troublesome or mischievous: also a half-jocular endearment to a child: e.g., ‘You young VARMINT’ [that is, vermin].
1826. COOPER, The Last of the Mohicans, viii. Uncas, call up your father; we have need of all our we’pons to bring the cunning VARMENT from his roost.
1863. GASKELL, Sylvia’s Lovers, i. All regarded in the light of mean kidnappers and spies—VARMENT as the common people esteemed them.
2. (hunting).—A fox.
1888. The Field, 4 Feb. Decided the hound in question to go for the VARMINT he had found.
Adj. (university).—Spruce, natty, good-all-round.
1823. Gradus ad Cantabrigiam. A VARMINT man spurns a scholarship, would consider it a degradation to be a fellow.
1827. J. M. F. WRIGHT, Alma Mater, or, Seven Years at the University of Cambridge, Vol. II., p. 118. The handsome man, my friend and pupil, was naturally enough a bit of a swell, or VARMINT Man.
