Tariff

Did You Know?

“Scavenger” is an alteration of the earlier “scavager,” itself from Anglo-French scawageour, meaning “collector of scavage.” In medieval times, “scavage” was a tax levied by towns and cities on goods put up for sale by nonresidents in order to provide resident merchants with a competitive advantage. The officers in charge of collecting this tax were later made responsible for keeping streets clean, and that’s how “scavenger” came to refer to a public sanitation employee in Great Britain before acquiring its current sense referring to a person who salvages discarded items.