1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Vermin

VERMIN (Fr. vermine, formed as if from Lat. verminus, vermis, a norm), the collective name applied to various classes of objectionable, harmful or destructive animals. To gamekeepers and those interested in the preservation of game, all animals such as the pole-cat, weasel, stoat, hawks, owls, &c., which destroy the eggs or young of preserved birds, are classed as “vermin,” and the same term includes rats, mice, &c. It is also the collective name given to all those disgusting and objectionable insects that infest human beings, houses, &c., when allowed to be in a filthy and unsanitary condition, such as bugs, fieas, lice, &c.