Beachcome

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To walk along a shoreline looking for useful or valuable objects that the tide has left behind
2. Searching the sand and shingle for driftwood, shells, or other items the sea has deposited
3. Scouring the coast for things washed up by the waves, such as wreckage, treasure, or curiosities

Etymology: Before it meant someone scavenging the shoreline, "beachcomber" described the sea itself. A "comber" was a long wave that curled over and broke onto the shore, and the name came from "comb," the crest or ridge of a wave, the same image as a rooster's comb. A beachcomber was a wave that combed the beach. The sense of a person came later, from the idea of someone who combs the beach for whatever the tide leaves behind. In the Pacific, it came to mean a European who had dropped out of seafaring life and settled among the islanders, often a deserter or castaway living off the shore. The verb "beachcomb" is a back-formation: English speakers took the noun, saw "-er" as an agent ending, and removed it to create a verb meaning to search the beach for salvage or to live that drifting, shoreline life.

Synonyms: scavenge, forage