small game

small game (uncountable)

1. Small animals and birds that are hunted and killed, either by hunters or predators.
2. (euphemistic) Small vermin.
   • 1841, The New Sporting Magazine, page 9:

     May be it is like that medicine a fellow rung in on poor lawyer Mac Campbell, to kill fleas, bed bugs, and all sich^[sic] small game; and made the lawyer believe it was so heavy that three ounces weighed a pound.

   • 1875, J. H. Riddell, The Uninhabited House:

     Smells, bad drainage, impure water, unhealthiness of situation, dampness, the absence of advantages mentioned, the presence of small game […]

• (antonym(s) of “hunting”): big game

• “small game”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

• megamalls