fossick
Pronunciation: /ˈfäsik
verb
[no object] Australian/New Zealand • informal
1Rummage; search: he spent years fossicking through documents
1.1Search for gold in abandoned workings.
Origin
mid 19th century (referring to mining): probably from the English dialect sense 'obtain by asking' (i.e., 'ferret out').
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Archaeologists make a profession of fossiking through someone's cast-offs. Though they collect many a cracked pot, they generally are not called crackpots.
