會咬會髒的小動物
這一家就是核心畫面本身：真的在屋裡、田裡的那一群。
noun · B2
Small animals, birds and insects such as rats, mice, fleas or foxes, when they are treated as harmful because they eat crops, get into food, or carry disease.
害蟲害獸
核心畫面
A way to hold this word: a swarm you want out of your house. Not one animal with a name, but a mass of small moving things - in the rice, under the floor, in the bed - that eat what is yours and leave dirt and sickness behind. Notice that the picture is not about what the animals are but about what they do to you, and that is why the word can be pointed at a fox, a flea, or a human being.
可以想成：一群你想趕出家門的東西。不是一隻有名字的動物，而是一大片會動的小東西——在米袋裡、在地板下、在床上——吃掉…更多收起
可以想成：一群你想趕出家門的東西。不是一隻有名字的動物，而是一大片會動的小東西——在米袋裡、在地板下、在床上——吃掉你的東西，留下髒污和疾病。要注意的是，這個畫面說的不是牠們「是什麼」，而是牠們「對你做了什麼」。正因為如此，這個字可以指向狐狸、跳蚤，也可以被拿來指向人。From the word’s history
Wiktionary traces the word through Old French vermine to Latin vermis, a worm, and notes the related words vermiculate and vermivorous. The oldest picture is therefore a mass of worms, which is exactly the crawling, countless quality the modern word still carries even when it is used of a fox.
字典把這個字經古法文 vermine 追到拉丁文 vermis（蟲），同一條線上還有 vermiculate、vermivorous。最早的畫面就是一堆蟲。今天即使拿來說狐狸，那種「一大群、爬來爬去、數不清」的感覺還在，這正是這個字和 pest 之類的字不同的地方。
Wiktionary entry for vermin, supplied in this batch's evidence packet: From Middle English vermyn, from Old French vermine, from Vulgar Latin *verminum, from Latin vermis (worm).
Two branches
拿這個畫面去指人
把那一群蟲鼠的畫面整個搬到人身上，所以它的重量不在難聽，而在把人從「人」的位置上移開。
noun · C1
A very strong insult for people the speaker sees as worthless and harmful to everyone else, by comparing them to rats and insects.
敗類