gamin

1. (dated, also attributively) A homeless boy; a male street urchin; also (more generally), a cheeky, street-smart boy.Examples: "Dearest Eloise,— There is one little and perhaps insignificant French cake, which I feel certain would soon become a favourite in the cottage, more particularly amongst its juvenile inhabitants. It is the famed galette, the melodramatic food of the gamins, galopins, mechanics, and semi-artists of France."; "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."; "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."Antonyms: gaminealsoattributivedated