gamin

Etymology

Borrowed from French gamin (“street urchin; young boy”), apparently an “eastern dialect” word of unknown origin.

noun

1. (dated, also attributively) A homeless boy; a male street urchin; also (more generally), a cheeky, street-smart boy.
   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. 1854, Alexis [Benoît] Soyer, A Shilling Cookery for the People: Embracing an Entirely New System of Plain Cookery and Domestic Economy, London, New York, N.Y.: George Routledge & Co., →OCLC, page 125
   Then—far-off music and excitement. Faces at the windows. Naked yellow gamins begin to dance. … Down the square the procession goes, followed by the music, turns a corner, and is lost. The gamins leave off dancing. 1923, Evelyn Scott, “Part IV”, in Escapade, New York, N.Y.: Thomas Seltzer, →OCLC, page 135
   According to [Gustave] d'Outrepont, Paris is the boy's metaphoric mother, rocking and nursing him in the streets. Attending all municipal events, street spectacles, and popular theater (where he managed by his wits to get in for free), the gamin is constructed in dualities: child and man, cowardly and brave, serious and laughing, cruel and sympathetic. 2017, Marilyn R. Brown, “The Gamin de Paris and the Revolution of 1830”, in The Gamin de Paris in Nineteenth-century Visual Culture: Delacroix, Hugo, and the French Social Imaginary, New York, N.Y., Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, pages 39–40