A word used largely, to indicate any wild animal or objectionable person. In cases where the context does not explain it, the species of “varmint” is here specially indicated.
1820. One of the [bear] cubs, however, forced the new-comer to retreat into the river, where, standing to the middle in the water, he gave his foe a mortal shot, or, to use his own language, “I burst the varment.”—James Hall, ‘Letters from the West,’ p. 297 (Lond.).
1820. “These little fixens,” added he [Glass], “make a man feel right peart, when he is three or four hundred miles from any body or any place—all alone among the painters and wild varments.”—Id., p. 304. [The little “fixens” were knife, flint, and steel]. (Italics in the original.)
1827. They scent plunder; and it would be as hard to drive a hound from his game as to throw the varmints [Indians] from its trail.—J. F. Cooper, ‘The Prairie,’ i. 55.
1833. I saw before me a slim sweet gum, so slick, that it looked like every varmunt in the woods had been sliding down it for a month.—‘Sketches of D. Crockett,’ p. 87 (N.Y.). (Italics in the original.)
1833. See BODYACIOUSLY.
1833. [He reasoned] that every pig which was not marked must be common property, or, as he expressed it, a wild varment.—James Hall, ‘The Harpe’s Head,’ p. 109 (Phila.). (Italics in the original.)
1834. A Varmounter never uses a dog,—he is his own dog. Give him a gun, and he asks no odds. There’s no varmint that crawls the earth who can match him.—Vermont Free Press, June 7: from the Hartford (Conn.) Pearl.
1835. See BUG.
1835. Mrs. B. … How did you come on raisin’ chickens this year, Mis’ Shad?
Mrs. S. La messy, honey! I have had mighty bad luck. I had the prettiest pa’sel you most ever seed till the varment took to killin ’em.
Mrs. R. and Mrs. B. The varment!!
Mrs. S. O dear, yes. The hawk catched a powerful sight of them; and then the varment took to ’em, and nat’ly took ’em fore and aft, bodily, till they left most none at all hardly.—A. B. Longstreet, ‘Georgia Scones,’ p. 213.
1836. This must have been a very remarkable snake,—or, as they say in the West, all sorts of a snake,—besides a little touch of a four-legged varmint.—Phila. Public Ledger, April 30.
[1836. A judge in Kentucky has decided that a dandy is a nuisance. We hope this decision will not drive any of their “virmin” to this city, as we are already over-run with them now.—Id., Nov. 2.
1836. As I spoke rather sharp, the varment [an Arkansas landlord] seemed rather staggered, but he soon recovered himself, and came up to the chalk again.—‘Col. Crockett in Texas,’ p. 73 (Phila.).
1837. The fossil remnant of some antediluvian varmint, in the shape of a molar tooth, was dug up.—Balt. Comml. Transcript, Aug. 25, p. 2/3: from the Scioto Gazette.
1839. See SQUIRM.
1842. Killed. A mad dog in Locust Street yesterday. The “varmint” had run into the midst of a colored temperance meeting.—Phila. Spirit of the Times, June 6.
1844. Foreign paupers (says the Louisville Journal) are uglier than hyenas, jackals, grizzly bears, Brazilian apes, or any other varmints.—Id., Dec. 27.
1846. A Varmint. A man in a wild state, it is said, has been seen in the swamps about the Arkansas and Missouri line; his track measures 22 inches; his toes are as long as a common man’s fingers; and in height and make he is double the usual size.—St. Louis Reveille, March 22.
1846. See CAUTION, A. See also Appendix III.
1847. A list of varmints that would make a caravan, beginning with the bar, and ending off with the cat; that’s meat though, not game.—T. B. Thorpe, ‘The Big Bear of Arkansas,’ p. 16 (Phila.).
1847. If they [mosquitoes] ar large, Arkansaw is large, her varmints ar large, her trees ar large, her rivers ar large, and a small mosquito would be of no more use in Arkansaw than preaching in a cane-brake.—Id., p. 18.
1847. See LET SLIDE.
a. 1848. Ye men of Gotham! What a pretty looking nest of varmints ye are, taken in a heap, altogether.—Dow, Jun., ‘Patent Sermons,’ i. 182.
1848. I don’t mean the flood what drownded out all creation cept old father Noey and his cargo of varmints, but I mean the flood of 1840.—W. T. Thompson, ‘Major Jones’s Sketches of Travel,’ p. 28 (Phila.).
1848. Sumbody cum in and told them that a wild hog or sum other varmint was ’bout to eat up the Governor’s baby.—Id., p. 99.
1848. See BRUNG. See GO THE WHOLE HOG.
1850. [She] kum to Luzaanny [Louisiana] an’ got marred to a nother man, the pisen varment, to do sich as that.—H. C. Lewis (‘Madison Tensas’), ‘Odd Leaves,’ p. 152 (Phila.).
1851. Thar aint no varmint in these hills nor any whar else I’ve ben, that kin kick wuss, either round or sideways, than a full grown Grizzly.—‘Polly Peablossom’s Wedding,’ &c., p. 110.
a. 1853. Don’t merely scotch the old serpent this time, but kill the varment as dead as the United States Bank.—Dow, Jun., ‘Patent Sermons,’ iv. 283.
1855. I’m a liar if thar warn’t nigh half a bushel of the stinging varmints [hornets] ready to pitch into me.—Weekly Oregonian, Oct. 13.
1857. I got mad, and I swore a big oath like to myself that I ’d fix that thar cussed varmint [a coon] in less nor a week, or die tryin’.—Knick. Mag., xlix. 68 (Jan.).
1858. These glossy little ‘varmints,’ the crows, were very destructive to the young poultry.—Id., li. 365 (April).
1858. See CIRCUIT-RIDER.
1858. For nearly a fortnight a regular live comet has been visible. Time of appearance, early in the evening. It is rumored to us that the same varmint is occasionally seen flitting athwart the sky of mornings.—Oregon Weekly Times, Oct. 2.
1867. “I’ve not had anything to eat to-day, and would like to lick some varmint as has,” said Kentucky Joe, a gaunt, half-starved, but never desponding fellow.—W. L. Goss, ‘The Soldier’s Story,’ p. 103 (Boston).
1890. He had found a wolf’s head just inside of his tent, and he “reckoned if he kept Dixie [a tame wolf] much longer the hull tarnal lot of varmints would think they’d got to visit him.”—Mrs. Custer, ‘Following the Guidon,’ p. 123 (N.Y.).
