• (RP, GA) IPA: /ˈɡæmɪn/

gamin (plural gamins)

1. (dated, also, attributively) A homeless boy; a male#Adjective|male street urchin; also (more generally), a cheeky, street-smart boy.

   Antonyms: gamine

   • 1862, Victor Hugo, “The Ancient Soul of Gaul” and “Ecce Paris, Ecce Homo”, in Cha[rle]s E[dwin] Wilbour, transl., Les Misérables. Marius. A Novel. Translated from the Original French, volume III, New York, N.Y.: [George W.] Carleton, publisher, […], OCLC 1007115870 ↗, book 2, [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hwkd2b;view=1up;seq=20 page 14]:

     The Paris gamin is respectful, ironical, and insolent. He has bad teeth, because he is poorly fed, and his stomach suffers and fine eyes because he has genius. [...] To sum up all once more, the gamin of Paris of the present day is, as the grœculus of Rome was in ancient times, the people as a child, with the wrinkles of the old world on its brow. The gamin is a beauty and, at the same time, a disease of the nation—a disease that must be cured. How? By light.

   • 1894, [Robert William Chambers], chapter XVII, in In the Quarter, New York, N.Y.; Chicago, Ill.: F. Tennyson Neely, publisher, OCLC 10484790 ↗, page 313 ↗:

     Here, in front, the deserted street was white and black and silent, under the electric lamps. All the lonelier for two wretched gamins, counting their dirty sous, and draggled newspapers.

• gamine
• gaminerie

• French: gamin
• German: Straßenjunge
• Italian: derelitto, disadattato, ragazzo di strada, senzatetto, vagabondo
• Russian: беспризо́рник
• Spanish: gamín (Colombia)

• French: gamin
• Spanish: gamín (Colombia)