fossick

Verb

fossick (third-person singular simple present fossicks, present participle fossicking, simple past and past participle fossicked)

1. (Australia, New Zealand, UK, intransitive) To search for something; to rummage.
   • I dined alone and sat after dinner in the smoking-room, for Odell never suggested the library, though I would have given a lot to fossick about that place.1924 July, John Buchan, “Our Time is Narrowed”, in The Three Hostages, London: Hodder & Stoughton, published January 1926, →OCLC, page 227
   • I could have built a better fire myself but I was too cold when we arrived to fossick around for twigs. I went back to the warm car and let Neil and Henry fossick. Playing the dumb broad is profitable too.1980, Barbara Pepworth, Early Marks, Sydney, N.S.W.: Angus & Robertson, →ISBN, page 178
   1. (Australia, New Zealand, UK, intransitive, specifically) To elicit information; to ferret out.
      • [T]he honorable member went to the Railway department, and fossicked about for information, and he found, forsooth, that there had been a little rise in the salary of a son of a member of the House.1872 May 28, Francis Longmore, “Address in Reply to the Governor’s Speech”, in Victoria. Parliamentary Debates. Session 1872. Legislative Council and Legislative Assembly, volume XIV (Comprising the...
   2. (Australia, New Zealand, UK, intransitive, specifically) To search for gems, gold, etc., on the surface or in abandoned workings.
      • The "fossicker" is one who wanders about old diggings, armed with a knife and pan, and who seldom sinks or drives, but "fossicks" or searches about the old heaps of dirt, or in the bottoms of deserted shafts and drives, keen-eyed after unobserved gold.1862 December, J. A. Patterson, “Mining and Miners”, in The Gold Fields of Victoria in 1862, Melbourne, Vic.: Wilson & Mackinnon, 78, Collins Street East; G[eorge] Robertson, Elizabeth Street; Sands...
      • In New South Wales the bureau has been able to dispose of a large contingent of the workless by sending them to fossick for gold on old or deserted goldfields.1902, William Pember Reeves, “The Labour Question”, in State Experiments in Australia and New Zealand, volume 2, London: G. Richards, →OCLC; republished as State Experiments in Australia and New...
2. (UK, dialectal, intransitive) To be troublesome.