Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Vermin

Ver′min (·mĭn), n. sing. & pl.; used chiefly as plural. [OE. vermine, F. vermine, from L. vermis a worm; cf. LL. vermen a worm, L. verminosus full of worms. See Vermicular, Worm.] 1. An animal, in general. [Obs.]

Wherein were all manner of fourfooted beasts of the earth, and vermin, and worms, and fowls. Acts x. 12. (Geneva Bible).

This crocodile is a mischievous fourfooted beast, a dangerous vermin, used to both elements. Holland.

2. A noxious or mischievous animal; especially, noxious little animals or insects, collectively, as squirrels, rats, mice, flies, lice, bugs, etc. "Cruel hounds or some foul vermin." Chaucer.

Great injuries these vermin, mice and rats, do in the field. Mortimer.

They disdain such vermin when the mighty boar of the forest . . . is before them. Burke.

3. Hence, in contempt, noxious human beings.

You are my prisoners, base vermin. Hudibras.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.