different between beachcomber vs beachcombing

English

Alternative forms

• beach-comber

Etymology

From beach +? comber.

Noun

beachcomber (plural beachcombers)

1. (nautical) A seaman who is not prepared to work but hangs around port areas living off the charity of others.
   • 1919, W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence, chapter 46

     The society of beach-combers always repays the small pains you need be at to enjoy it. They are easy of approach and affable in conversation.

2. Any loafer around a waterfront.
3. A person who collects marine salvage at the coast.
4. A long rolling wave of the sea.

Translations

Further reading

• “beachcomber”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.

English

Etymology

beach +? combing

Noun

beachcombing (countable and uncountable, plural beachcombings)

1. The lifestyle and habits of a beachcomber.
2. An item found lying near the sea; marine salvage.
   • 2019, Beth Lynch, Where the Hornbeam Grows: A Journey in Search of a Garden

     The beachcombings – the wood, the metal, the stones – were more than functional, collected and sorted and arranged as things that were lovely in their own right, artefacts.

   • 2013, James Canton, Out of Essex: Re-Imagining a Literary Landscape

     I wandered along, sifting through the Thames' beachcombings. In a patch of sand lay a section of soft pink roof tile some two inches square or so, and witha peg hole.

Verb

beachcombing

1. present participle of beachcomb