night soil collector
Historical occupation; colloquial term for someone who collected human waste for use as fertilizer. Now obsolete in practice.
In the Edo period, night soil collectors gathered human waste from towns and sold it to farmers.
Common modern spelling using kana for おわい and kanji for 屋.
Contains outdated kanji; rarely used today.
Compound of おわい (night soil, from 汚穢) and 屋 (shop, dealer). The exact derivation of おわい is uncertain.