scavenger [M16th] The earliest form of scavenger was scavager [ME], an official who collected scavage, a toll on foreign merchants’ goods, found from the 15th century. Scavagers eventually also acquired the duty of keeping the streets of their town clean. In the mid 16th century people began to insert an -n- in the word and scavenger was born, in the same way as messenger and passenger, both words that started out life without an -n-. In time the municipal officials lost their more important duties and a scavenger became simply a street cleaner and then a person who collects anything usable from discarded waste.