Plural of guttersnipe; multiple street urchins or people of the poorest social class.
Regular plural formation of 'guttersnipe,' adding the standard English '-s' ending. The word gained prominence in 19th-century literature describing urban poor.
Victorian literature is full of 'guttersnipes' because that era invented modern cities, creating visible street poverty that horrified wealthy readers—the word appeared in Dickens and became shorthand for the whole 'social problem' of urban poverty.
Plural of historically gendered slur. Reinforces exclusionary framing of street children as male by default, with girls invisibilized or pathologized differently.
Avoid as collective slur; use 'street children' or 'unhoused youth' to include all genders.
["street children","unhoused youth","children in poverty"]
Women's experiences of homelessness and street life were systematically underrecorded; use inclusive historical language to acknowledge all children affected.
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