vermin

EdmundからLucy達の居場所を聞きつけたWitch Queenは手下を連れてそこに駆けつけますが、途中で楽しそうに食事をしているリス達のグループを見掛けます。
The father squirrel stopped eating with his fork halfway to his mouth and one of the satyrs stopped with its fork actually in its mouth, and the baby sqirrels with terror.
"What is the meaning of this?" asked the Witch Queen. Nobody answered.
"Speak, vermin!" she said again.
この "vermin" は知らない単語なので調べます。
・Collins Dictionary:
1.functioning as plural small animals collectively, esp insects and rodents, that are troublesome to man, domestic animals, etc: In a day it will go green, and in three it seethes with slimy vermin.
2.(plural) -min. an unpleasant, obnoxious, or dangerous person: For all along the roadside the rubbish tips were crawling with people: the cinder-sifters, a kind of human vermin.
・Vocabulary.com: Vermin is a catch-all term that can be used for any small animals or insects that we think of as pests. The cockroaches you found in your bathroom were the grossest vermin you'd ever seen.
The word vermin originally came from the Anglo-French word of the same spelling, meaning "noxious animals" ? definitely a negative term. Rats, mice, cockroaches, along with pests to farmers and the animals they raise, like coyotes and weasels, are vermin. Annoying people who cause problems are also sometimes called vermin, like the vermin who bully others.
害虫やネズミなどを "vermin" と呼ぶのは人間から見た人間の都合で、害虫やネズミは人間に悪意があって生きているのではないのですが、 "vermin" と呼ばれる人間には絶対なりたくないですね。でも新聞を見ると毎日多くの "vermin" がいる事を知り残念です。