bottom-feeding

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bottom feeder

1. A fish or other animal that feeds on the bottom of a body of water.

2. One that feeds low on the food chain; a scavenger.

3. Slang

a. An opportunist who profits from the misfortunes of others: "The frazzled, adrenaline-pumped tabloid newshounds [in the movie] are the bottom feeders of contemporary journalism" (Entertainment Weekly).

b. A low or despicable person.

bottom feeding n.

bot′tom-feed′ing (bŏt′əm-fē′dĭng) adj.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

bot′tom-feed`ing

the activities of a bottom feeder.

Also called bot′tom-fish`ing.

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Adj.

bottom-feeding - of or relating to fish and marine life that feed on the bottom of a body of water

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References in periodicals archive ?

More than a century later, some populations of the massive bottom-feeding fish are showing signs of recovery in the dark corners of U.S.

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I also ate oysters, which have always bothered me, with their bottom-feeding tendencies.

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Pompano are bottom-feeding schoolers that congregate in tight schools in dredged sand holes and along sharp drop-offs and small channels where depths drop abruptly to 4 and 5 feet or more.

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Compounding Ted's crisis is an impending divorce and the fact that his daughter, Franny, works as a reporter at the bottom-feeding website scheisse.com, run by a young German billionaire whose motto is "NO RULES.

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His bottom-feeding counterpart is omitted, rendered redundant, probably because what chases vermin becomes vermin once the task is completed.

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(http://variety.com/2014/tv/reviews/tv-review-the-brittany-murphy-story-1201298080/) Variety described the film as "a bottom-feeding slice of tacky TV movie exploitation that transforms a true Hollywood tragedy into a tedious trash."